


The Dark Edge of Reason

by musesmistress



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-27
Updated: 2013-02-09
Packaged: 2017-10-21 19:58:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 38,956
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/229162
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/musesmistress/pseuds/musesmistress
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John thinks there’s something going on with Elizabeth and soon discovers that she’s trying to kill herself before life can get the better of her. Only things get complicated and life turns upside down before a trator is revealed and Elizabeth can start over with John at her side.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

John had watched her all day, all week if he was really honest. There was something different, something off about her. She’d been down for a while now, struggling through the day and seemingly locking herself away after dinner. He was sat opposite her now, having successfully talked his team into being in the mess at the same time as Elizabeth Weir, and he couldn’t help but watch how she nursed her remaining coffee. She had only joined the conversation when it was required she do so and even before he’d even taken his seat she had fixed her eyes on the table.

Something was wrong and he was determined to find out what. But to do that, he would need help. He knew that something was bothering her, figured it was personal, but either way it was getting in the way of her doing her job properly. The first thing he had noticed, and he knew Teyla had spotted it too from the look she gave him, was that Elizabeth hadn’t eaten. There was no plate left even half empty on the table, just her and her mug. He’d noticed the same thing when he’d tried to join her for breakfast the previous morning. He’d managed a friendly ‘hey’, seeming to jog her from her thoughts and she’d quickly checked the time and left without as much as a sound.

He glanced to Elizabeth’s left and met the worried look on Teyla’s face with a confused one of his own. Next to Teyla, Ronon sat with his brow furrowed and his eyes darting between Elizabeth and John. When he met his friends eye this time Ronon furrowed his brow further and nodded in Elizabeth’s direction in question. John shrugged.

Rodney’s trey hit the table hard and his drink tipped off his trey. For a moment there was a quick scuffle as they hurriedly tried to soak up the liquid with tissues that Rodney had grabbed from the cutlery desk. He turned back in time to see Elizabeth take a last mouthful of her drink and get up.

“Elizabeth,” he said and she stopped and turned to look at him. For a moment he was silent, the look of hurt and pleading in her eyes catching him off guard and he felt his heart strings tug. Before he could carry on though, she turned and left the room.

John slipped into her abandoned reverie, keeping quiet as he finished his meal and just nodding to the others as they left the room. He didn’t entertain Teyla’s request for them to find out what was bothering Elizabeth and just suggested he would talk to Doctor Heightmeyer about her recent behaviour and leave it at that.

“You’re worried about her,” Ronon said, shifting across to Elizabeth’s empty chair when it was just the two of them.

“Of cause I am,” he said sharply but didn’t elaborate.

“You should go talk to her, find out what’s wrong. See if you can help.”

“It’s not my business or job. Doctor Heightmeyer is better at that than me.”

“Suit yourself, go see Heightmeyer.”

Ronon got up, picking up Elizabeth’s abandoned white mug and moved away. It was a few seconds before John spotted something unusual. A thin white powder left in a small pile in a ring around where the cup had been. It blended so well with table and her mug that it was almost impossible to see. He reached across the table and dipped his pinkie in the pile and brought it up to his nose. It didn’t smell of anything and he couldn’t bring himself to see if there was a taste.

“Hey,” he said stopping one of the mess hall staff, “do you have a small container and piece of card I could borrow?”

“I’ll check,” she said shyly and scurried off.

She returned a few minutes later with a small brown dish and offered her security badge as the piece of card. John used the plastic to brush the powder into the bowl off the edge of the table and handed it back to her. He told her to wash it and the table quickly before leaving the room. He made it half way down the corridor before Major Lorne cornered him requesting time to talk about team assignments. John barely listened for a few minutes before he stopped him.

“Not right now,” he said. “Can you do me a favour?”

“Sure,” Lorne said a little shocked.

“Take this to Carson, I need to know what it is and I need to know now,” he said and walked away.

When he turned into Elizabeth corridor he caught sight of someone turning the corner at the other end. He carried on down the hall and rang her chime without hesitation. He waited, looking either way down the empty corridor before then turned back and rang the chime again. Moments passed before he impatiently and daringly opened the door.

The dark of the room seemed to engulf him and he stepped in with a sense of dread settling heavily on his shoulder. Despite the eerie feeling, he considered the possibility that she hadn’t come back here this time. Maybe she’d gone to her office or one of the balconies somewhere in the city. That passed when he stepped into the main bedroom area and the tangy sent of copper reached his nose. A smell he would easily admit he knew too well; blood.

He turned quickly, stepping back to the door and slapped the panel to switch the lights on. When he turned back he wished he hadn’t. Laying sprawled face down on the floor next to her bed was Elizabeth, her hair an unnatural mess and the glint of something sharp a few inches from her right hand. Blood seeped out from a gash on her left wrist and it took him a moment before he saw a similar horror on her right arm.

He couldn’t breathe, his eyes fixed on the sight before him. The blood pumping through his body seemed to collect in his ears, the sound deafening and frightening. Then without warning he surged into action his hand to his radio as his feet took him forward towards her bathroom.

“Medical emergency, Doctor Weir’s room.”

He vanished into the bathroom and ripped the towels off the holders and jogged a few things off the side into the sink or floor. Quickly, now that his body and mind where back on track, he moved back to the bedroom and dropped down next to her slight form. It was at this point, as he wrapped the smallest towel around her left arm that he realised the state she was actually in. Her cheeks were stained with tears, mascara running just slightly from her eyes and mixing with the eyeliner she’d so carefully applied. Her top was missing, he couldn’t spare a thought for its whereabouts just now, but he could wander why. Had she been changing for bed, decided it wasn’t worth it and picked up the first sharp object she could see.

He wrapped the other towel around her other arm, it was too large, but he didn’t care, he pushed down on that arm keeping a tight hold on the ends of the hand towel around her left. His imagination was two steps ahead of how to deal with this, he thought of something much worse that his current situation.

What if he’d followed Ronon from the mess hall? Never noticing the strange powder; never noticing it sitting in an arc around her cups previous location. Was it poison? Something she’d taken willingly and now thought it was taking too long to take effect. Was it just something to help her sleep? Taken because she couldn’t get there naturally anymore? What if it was just something to numb herself so she could commit suicide without feeling the pain and chickening out?

Too lost in though, John didn’t hear the door open, didn’t hear Carson’s Scottish tone demanding he move. He barely felt the hand grabbing his arm and pulling him and was dimly aware that he didn’t want to go; that he struggled to get back to her side before he was forced back into a chair in Elizabeth’s entry room. His eyes found Ronon’s in a moment of pleading before he spotted Teyla standing in the door to Elizabeth bedroom, her hand to her mouth and her back stiff.

“I should have listened,” John said. His throat was dry and tight making him sound huskier than he even thought possible. “I should have followed her.”

The rushing blood in his ears seemed to clear with the revelation and the sounds of the medical team in the next room came into focus. He picked out three voices before he caught movement from the doorway leading to the hall and he turned to see Radek, Lorne and several other civilians standing there peeking in. From the pale of Radek’s face he knew the man stood in just the right place to see directly into Elizabeth’s room and at the medical team hastily trying to save her life.

“Shut that door,” he demanded and Lorne reacted quickly, reaching out and activating the sensor.

He dropped back in his chair and looked at Ronon, now sitting across from him his eyes turned on Teyla who was sitting on the edge of the line of chair leaning forward so she could look in on Elizabeth. It seemed so surreal, so wrong and completely unlike Elizabeth. She was too strong, too stubborn to just give up like this. He wished he’d followed her to ask what was going on days ago, a week ago when he first noticed the change in how she held herself, how she did her job. When she’d first said ‘I don’t know’ instead of giving him a straight answer, like she always did.

Teyla shifted and the medical team emerged with a gurney, Elizabeth strapped down, her wrists bandaged and her body covered with a thick blanket. The door out opened and John watched the crowd part, he spotted several new people from the last time the door had opened, but paid them no mind.

Carson had stepped out last and closed the door behind the medical team before turning back to them. John saw him step forward, give Teyla’s arm a slight squeeze, making John sure she was crying, and then turned to face him.

“Where did the powder come from?” Carson asked.

“It was on the mess hall table where Elizabeth sat.”

“It was in her food?” he asked his brows coming dangerously close to vanishing into his hairline.

“In her drink,” John corrected. “She didn’t have any food,” he swallowed hard, finding the simple act painful and tasting horribly of Elizabeth’s blood. “What is it?”

“I was just starting my analysis when you called. Doctor Morris is doing it as we speak. How long between her leaving the mess and you stepping in?”

John thought about it carefully, turning to look out the window at the darkening sky. Rodney had sat down, noisily, spilled his drink, left them to clear it up and gone for a refill. It was about this time that Elizabeth had left. They had eaten, Teyla left first, needing to arrange a trip to the mainland the next day, then Rodney had gone. John remembered finding it amusing to watch him argue with the mess staff about taking a plate of pie away with him. Then Ronon had moved across to talk to him for a minute or two before leaving. Several more minutes had passed before he’d noticed the powder and scoped it up. Then there was the time in the corridor with Lorne and the walk to her room.

“About an hour forty-five.”

Almost two hours she’d spent alone, two hours in which she could have been bleeding out on her floor. Two hours ago he could have followed her out of the room, ignoring his own rumbling stomach to talk to her, find out what was going on, why she was suddenly so unconfident in her own job. He needed to find out what was going on.

“She hasn’t been bleeding all that long,” Carson said and John felt some of the weight lift. “Probably no more than five minutes,” he added. “We need to find out why no one noticed that she’d become a danger to herself and…”

“I did notice,” he said. “I thought she’d work through it, like she has done several times already.”

“We all noticed,” Teyla put in. “There is something different this time, something has led her to believe she had nothing left to live for anymore.”

“Aye, either way, we need to find out what’s going on.”

John just nodded, it was all he could bring himself to do as Carson left the room and the three of them sat in complete silence.

~~**~~

For several long, silent and uncomfortable moments, John sat with Ronon and Teyla in Elizabeth’s room. When he finally moved it was to stand in the doorway next to Teyla and look in at the room. Again the feeling that something wasn’t right with this situation flittered across his brain. Her room was clean, ornaments and object neatly in place, her night dress folded neatly on her pillow and bed made with just the corner pulled back. The only thing out of place in the whole room was the blood stain on the floor and the blade still sitting a foot from her bedside cabinet.

He moved closer, staring down at the object, a thin, delicately decorating handle held tightly to the blade and John narrowed his eyes on the design. He’d seen it before, studied it intently before trading his off world rations for it. He’d given it to her four months ago, along with a black stand. When she’d asked what the occasion was, he had just smiled at her and walked away. He turned, his eyes running along the shelves of her room until he spotted the stand standing just to the right of the door he had stepped through.

John moved back to stand in the doorway looking into the bedroom and then slowly turned to look up at the stand. His brow quirked, his mind running the possibility that someone else had caused this, that someone had slipped that powder into her drink, disabled her, picked up the knife on the way in and made it look like suicide. Somehow, he knew no one else would believe this.

“John?” Teyla asked.

“The knife,” he said pointing to the blade still resting on the floor. “It came from there,” he pointed up to the stand on the shelf by his ear.

“She picked it up on her way in,” Ronon said. John didn’t respond.

His eyes took in the room, every cupboard, draw and surface with something on it. Every book and her palm computer. He pictured her office taking in the same information, and then turned to his company.

“Ronon, get Rodney and go search Elizabeth’s office, anything that can explain her behaviour over the last week, include her computer in the search. Look everywhere she might be able to hide something,” Ronon nodded and turned away, he didn’t move for a moment. “Tell Rodney I’ll kill him if he doesn’t look and open every file.”

He waited until Ronon was out of the room before he turned to Teyla. For the first time he took in her strained features, the red around her eyes and the light streaks of tears down her cheeks. He smiled sympathetically at her before offering her a choice.

“Do you want to search the bathroom or bedroom?”

Teyla’s eyes flicked around the room before resting on the blood now staining the floor beside the bed. It was a moment before she spoke and it wasn’t to answer his question.

“To take your own life is unthinkable amongst my people. Too many of us have been taken by the Wraith that life is valued so much higher over death. I do not understand what could push Elizabeth to do such a thing.”

Without thinking John moved forward and enveloped Teyla in a hug. He hadn’t considered that this was not something done in her race, or any other for that matter.

“Would you prefer to go stay with Elizabeth?” he asked almost too quietly. “Talk to her when she wakes up?”

Teyla nodded and turned to quickly leave the room. Alone, John turned back to the main room, his eye back on the blood stain, his heart thundering, forcing the blood back to his ears. His heart sank at the possibility that he could have walked away from the door. Could have assumed she wasn’t in and moved on, gone to bed and no one would have found her until she didn’t arrive for work the next morning. It would have been too long. Too late.

He closed his eye remembering the smile he’d brought about just a few days ago, he’d said something stupid without meaning to and despite her sad eyes and pallid complexion she had smiled.

John swallowed, the horrible tang still lingering in the air, and headed for the bathroom.

~~**~~

Carson said nothing as Teyla stepped into the infirmary and took a seat beside Elizabeth’s bed. He tapped at his tablet computer and out the corner of his eye watched as she Teyla checked the monitors and took Elizabeth’s hand. It was strange for him to watch and he faltered just slightly wondering why it was Teyla took this so hard. He’d seen first hand how her people valued natural death and therefore the life before it, but there was something creasing her brow that told him she wasn’t so sure Elizabeth had any different values than she did. He caught sight of Kate Heightmeyer moving into room and got up to join her.

“What’s going on? People seem to be talking about something big, but no one will tell me what.”

“Elizabeth was found in her room, two slashes through each wrist.”

“Suicide?” It wasn’t the word, or the tone of the word that caught Carson’s attention, it was the confusion on Kate’s face. Yet another person who couldn’t place this act on Elizabeth Weir. “I suppose under the strain of leading all the people in Atlantis, dealing with the Wraith, Replicators and Genii the stress could pile up.”

“You forgot the IOA,” Carson added and watched Kate’s brow rise.

“That’s an interesting thing to say,” she said. Carson was confused. How had that been anything more than a fact? “Elizabeth is one of the few people on this expedition that has mandatory meetings with me. Every two weeks, she spends three hours with me in the evening to discuss anything that’s causing her personal problems. Ironically our next meeting is tomorrow,” at this point she turned to face him. “She’s never hesitated to pay me a visit early or even in addition if it starts to pile up. I’m sure I know more about her than she does about everyone else in this city.”

“Then why wouldn’t she talk to you this time?”

“That’s a very good question,” despite the words, Carson could tell she knew something. There was a missing piece of information that Doctor Kate Heightmeyer knew. He was ready to respond when Doctor Morris stopped close by, Carson motioned him closer. He was curious about the powder, and he knew whatever it was would end up in Kate’s knowledge sooner or later.

“It’s Chlorpromazine,” he said simply.

“What’s Chlorpromazine?” Kate asked looking confused.

“A drug I don’t stock,” Carson said. “How on Earth would Elizabeth get hold of a drug that is used to treat schizophrenia?” He turned to look at Kate who quirked a brow.

“I don’t stock it either.”

“You’re sure about what it is?” Carson asked Morris.

“Yep. Tested it twice.”

Carson opened his mouth to make a comment about the mysteries of the galaxy when Elizabeth stirred. Teyla was on her feet so fast it could have made his head spin. When he moved to join the Athosian, Kate stopped him. He turned a little shocked and frowned at her.

“See if a friend can do better than staff.”

He nodded, he didn’t like it, but he nodded.

~~**~~

Rodney mumbled to himself about wasting his time. Ronon ignored him, he had expected it and unsure if telling the scientist about Elizabeth was a good idea, he’d kept that information to himself. When Rodney had asked the obvious ‘why’, Ronon shrugged and told him it was Sheppard’s orders. At the same time he felt wrong withholding this vital piece of information, it wasn’t a secret, there had been at least twenty people standing outside her room when the Medical team left. Somehow it was a slight shock that Rodney hadn’t yet heard what had happened, then again in Ronon’s mind the man was so far stuck in his own world he would barely notice if someone sneezed.

Ronon himself had started at the back of her office, opening every ornament that rested on the back table, checking around the large monitor that keep the city status on constant display for her and then moved to the small side table sitting next to the door to the stairs. When he moved to the sofa and pulled the back cushions off he knew Rodney was watching him.

“Do you have idea what we’re looking for?”

“No,” Ronon said shortly. “Sheppard just said anything she might want to hide.”

“Well this is Elizabeth,” Rodney said and Ronon stopped. He was right, this was Elizabeth and in the year he’d been living here he’d learned very little about her. But what he did know was that she was coy and didn’t take any crap from anyone, especially John and Rodney. Right now though, it was the ‘coy’ side of her he was focusing on. If he were as sly and innocent looking as she was, were would he hide something he didn’t want others to see.

Her room was his first thought. No one went in there uninvited and chances of them getting in alone were slim. Something he found he loved about Atlantis was the ability for someone, gene or no gene, to protect their possessions. But the answer he really needed was: In plain sight.

He turned to her desk, studying it carefully; there were plenty of pots and things where she could stuff a piece of paper or some small object, never to be seen again. There was also her father’s watch and the computer which Rodney was using. Like most of the stationary systems in the city that they had brought from Earth, Elizabeth’s computer consisted of a docking port, removable unit which she could use as a touch screen on the go, mouse and base with keyboard. Ronon moved around behind Rodney and looked over his shoulder at the unit.

“That isn’t helping.”

“Move.”

“Neither is that.”

“Move.”

“Fine.”

Rodney shifted the chair to the side and watched as Ronon crouched down to level out with the desk. Slipped carefully under the base unit was an envelope.

Ronon 1, Elizabeth 0.

He picked the base up carefully and slipped it out from underneath. The handwriting on the front was delicate and simple and reminded him of his mother’s hand writing when he was young.

“Huh,” Rodney said a slight air of indigence in his tone. “I never thought to put things there.”

Rodney reached for the letter and Ronon moved it from his reach. He didn’t want to read it so he really didn’t think Rodney should either. In this whole city there were only four people Elizabeth trusted completely. Teyla, Carson, Kate Heightmeyer and John. Those, and only those, would see this letter.

“I’ll be with Sheppard, let him know what you find,” he said and left the room before Rodney could protest.

~~**~~

“Elizabeth?”

Elizabeth opened her eyes. The sharp sting seemed to be everywhere starting from two core locations, her wrists and her eyes. And damn she had hoped it was over, that she wouldn’t wake up in the infirmary with a throbbing more painful than a broken leg. She let her eyes settling on Teyla for just a second, the sympathetic look made her want to cry, scream and kick until they left her alone. Her eyes closed again and she fought the urge to rip the button stuck to her chest off and sling it at the woman.

It was then that the reminder set in her brain, everything that was going on, everything that had happened in the last week. News from home and situations in the city. She’d been given a reprieve, but they’d pulled her back, dragged her into the light and now they’d work hard at setting right the impossible. It was hopeless, she’d failed, she couldn’t do anything right, not even die. That thought alone drained the energy from her like the letters she had read and the face that tried hard to smile warmly at her.

“Elizabeth,” Teyla’s voice was soft and concerned.

“I wanna be alone,” she said barely caring if the words were coherent.

“I need to understand, Elizabeth. Why would you attempt to end your own life?”

Elizabeth turned her face away. It didn’t take much effort, just the complete relaxation of all her muscles; something she hadn’t done in what felt like fifteen long and arduous years.

“Please, Elizabeth,” Teyla tried again. “There cannot be anything so bad that you cannot find someone to help you with.”

“I want to be alone, Teyla.”

She knew the words would hurt, knew that she was turning away someone who wanted to help, but she’d done that for a week already and she’d do it for as long as it took. No food, water disguised as coffee and above all, only talking to those she had no choice but to be in contact with. The weight of her stress was lifted at last, her mind relaxing into distrust and uncaring. Nothing was simple anymore. Nothing seemed to be worth fighting for because the fight was too difficult or always ended with her writing a letter home to people who would never know how or why they lost someone. But the empty inside her held strong keeping her tease and release of frustration hostage and it was that feeling that made Teyla stand up, release her hand and move away from the bedside. One more person she wouldn’t have to worry about.

It was probably better for them that way.


	2. Chapter 2

John wished he could do this in another room, his own or even the room next door. The tang of Elizabeth blood was haunting him like a ghost with unfinished business and it was it was futzing with his concentration to the point of headache. He’d found a box of letters in her clothes cupboard. Thankfully the letters were lined up in order they were received the front one being the latest. He had opened that first one and hesitated at the opening line.

 _My darling Elizabeth._

He’d flicked to the end just to make sure he wasn’t reading a love letter and his heart did a shockingly relaxing flip flop as he read the little ‘mom’ signature. Reading through had only revealed that there was something Elizabeth was worried about. Nothing specific was mentioned and for a while he believed something in the city had gotten to her and she had confided in her mother as much as regulations would permit. But one letter a few weeks previous made John’s heart sink and his stomach churn horribly.

It had started well, the usually concern of a mother who, in Johns opinion, wrote to her daughter as though she were a teenage girl that had run away and refused to reveal her location. John couldn’t honestly blame her for that; he probably would have been the same. Then later she had apologised for several paragraphs about telling her the news in a littler and John read with a creased brow, he imaged Elizabeth had too, how her mother had been diagnosed with Chronic lymphocytic leukaemia. She went on to tell Elizabeth about her treatment and chances of living on. At the end of the letter, just as he was wishing he hadn’t seen any of it, he found the line _‘I would love to meet a grandchild before I die.’_

John had to take several deep breaths to control himself and clenched his jaw as the door opened. He turned from the desk and stack of letter to see Ronon standing a few paces away.

“Find anything?” he asked and tried to clear his throat, but the coppery taste was back and making it considerably harder to do.

“This,” Ronon said holding out a letter.

“You read it?”

“No.”

John nodded as he took the envelope, the white paper crinkling slightly under his tight fingers. It wasn’t another of the letters from her mother, all the letters on the desk in front of him where in a heavy manila paper with matching envelopes, both of which were decorated with delicate, slightly darker flowers. This one was plain and ominous and reminded John of the letters he would get from the Air Force that told him his latest assignment.

He opened the letter as Ronon picked up an empty envelope and ran his finger over the raised pattern of the flower. The insignia at the top screamed trouble, the standard IOA mark tainted the letter and made his fingers feel dirty just for holding it and his eyes blinded from the sight. He unfolded it and read the letter.

 _“Doctor Elizabeth Weir,”_ John knew it was bad news when there was no ‘dear’ at the beginning.

 _“Information recently received by this organisation has led us to believe that your actions on the base ‘Atlantis’ should now be drawn into great scrutiny. Sources that have reported to us direct from the city have continued to lay out your misjudgement of any situation and the mistreatment of several of the members of your staff. Along with these actions we have been informed that you have continued a relationship with one of the higher members of your military personnel despite our warnings that such an act will merit extreme investigation._

 _As of this moment, your personal and professional backgrounds are being re-examined and you are hereby ordered to return to Earth on the Daedalus when it next arrives at Atlantis.”_

John couldn’t make out the scribbled signature and his skin boiled so much that he couldn’t concentrate on the name printed underneath it. Someone, somewhere in the city was reporting back to the IOA and by the sounds of it, they were lying through their teeth.

The room around him seemed too small and Ronon too close, his eyes fixed on the next, already open letter from Elizabeth’s mother and the last line which once again, and this time jokingly, requested a grandchild. The unreality of Elizabeth’s suicide attempt was quickly coming into focus and it was crushing John’s lungs with a force big enough to sink the city. Her ill mother, the pressure to have a child, just one, before the illness stole her from the world. The IOA sticking her on report and the knowledge that scream traitor in John’s head, on top of this, her career was being put at risk, if they ruled against her, there was no way any organisation on Earth would ask for Elizabeth Weir to help with their negotiations.

“She could have done it to herself,” he said though a jaw so tightly clenched it was starting to hurt. “She really could have tried to kill herself.”

The door opened again and Teyla and Rodney entered. With shaking hands and a lot of effort, John released the letter onto the table hoping to lose it in amongst the older ones from her mother, ones that didn’t mention illnesses and grandchildren.

“What the hell is going on?” Rodney demanded. John didn’t need to look to see where Rodney’s eyes had gone and he couldn’t have looked if he wanted to.

“Elizabeth tried to commit suicide.”

The words were final. Silence hung hauntingly in the air and mingled like an old friend with the smell and taste of her blood. Together they attacked John, seeping into his skin and ripping at his heart. He couldn’t, wouldn’t accept that she had done this to herself. He’d help; he’d take her back to Earth, deal with the IOA demand permission for her to tell her mother where she was. He’d go with her, take her home to her mother, and let her hold the woman, sit silently as emotions unwound in the middle of the room. He’d even go so far as to promise her a baby if that’s what she really wanted.

Losing Elizabeth suddenly became a reality. In the beginning when they started their missions, she had pulled him aside early on and told him it was hard to watch his team go through the gate. The unknown galaxy scared her, the fear that she would never seem them again hung around her until they stepped back through the gate into Atlantis. It was only now that he actually realised what she had said.

 _‘I’m so afraid I won’t see you again, any of you....’_ It hadn’t been as carefully worded as she thought, or as he would have expected from her.

“Elizabeth is awake,” Teyla said, her voice sounding more normal though slightly strained. John nodded.

“What do you mean she tried to commit suicide?” Rodney asked.

“Used that knife to cut her wrists,” Ronon said, his blunt voice almost uncaring and John had the sudden image of Ronon using the knife to cut his own heart out and hand it to Rodney.

“Did you find anything?” John struggled with the word only slightly wanting to know the answer. Somehow he knew the answer would be yes and along with that yes there would be more bad news in Elizabeth’s life that had led her to tonight’s action.

“Nothing but her latest medical report from Carson.”

“What did it say?”

“Nothing much, slight high blood pressure, collateral’s fine, she’s healthy, and all that jazz,” Rodney replied and John nodded. “Though there was a bit at the end that said something about her being in her prime to have children.”

Those words forced John to lean forward, his head in his hands and his eyes settling on the last letter from her mother, the final line springing from the paper.

 _‘I love you no matter what you do or where you are.’_.

“What did Elizabeth say?” he asked.

“She would not speak with me,” Teyla said and John picked up the hurt in her tone. “Only saying she wished to be alone.”

John didn’t believe that. The odd sensation of a faked situation was flushing through him lifting the numb as though he’d been giving something to take off an anaesthetic. Why would Elizabeth make sure she was healthy and able to have children if she was going to give up on everything?

He stood up, turning to face the others and met each of their eyes before heading for the door.

“There’s something not right about all this,” he said before stepping outside and heading down the corridor.

~~**~~

Kate thought she knew those she saw regularly more than they knew themselves. She was sure she knew Elizabeth better than anyone in the city and even better than Elizabeth knew everyone else. Every second week for the last two years she’d sat in a meeting with Elizabeth. Most of the time they would discuss work, thing that got on Elizabeth nerves or the days stresses, other times they would degrade into gossip and conversations about anything other than the military or city systems.

Kate knew plenty about Elizabeth that many others didn’t. What happened to her father, how her mother was coping with her absence and even who Elizabeth trusted most in the city. She also knew that Elizabeth had several times come close to slipping into a relationship that didn’t really exist. The one name that always showed up in their meetings even managed to make its way into other conversations.

Sitting now with Elizabeth Kate felt like her world had been tipped upside down with the knowledge mixing unnaturally with what she saw. Her most confident and relaxed patient was pale and thin, her eyes closed even though she had turned her head away from Kate. From the time Kate had sat down she had said nothing, Elizabeth hadn’t moved, hadn’t so much as sighed or adjusted her position and at one point Kate had wondered if she was still breathing.

Routinely she let her eyes stray to the monitors, checking the signs of life in the currently oblivious leader of the city and Kate was reminded of something Elizabeth had said on a particularly difficult day.

 _‘Sometimes, I wish I could just vanish into my own world, never to be seen again.’_

Perhaps she’d managed to do it. Her eyes closed on Atlantis and opened on a whole new world. A planet where there were no organisations like the IOA and Genii. Where people were friendly and there was no hate or deception. She wanted to pay her a visit, see if it was as sickening as some people thought or if it was as blissful as Elizabeth hoped.

Kate wasn’t going to be the one to talk this time, interrupting a dream land that shouldn’t exist in anyone’s mind was not at the top of her list. The fact was Elizabeth needed to be willing to share whatever was troubling her and that wasn’t going to happen if Kate pushed her to talk.

Out the corner of her eye she watched John Sheppard step into the room and approach Carson. The conversed for a moment, obviously about Elizabeth as there was no other topic between them at the moment and before she could fathom what they were discussing exactly they turned and approached the bed. John moved to stand on the other side from Kate and he reached down to pull the connector from Elizabeth’s skin before switching off the machine. Kate’s brow rose as she watched him tentatively reach for the one low on her chest.

“Remove the IV,” John ordered turning to Carson.

“I’m not sure this is a good idea, Colonel.”

“It’s not like she can get worse anywhere else in the city,” John protested. Kate knew that he was right, but that wasn’t the point. “I’m not exactly gonna leave her on her own now, am I?”

Carson moved then, carefully removing the IV and Kate turned her eyes away from what he was doing to watch Elizabeth. Still not signs that she was aware of what was going on around her, she didn’t even wince as the needle was removed. Carson patched her up and before he could speak to say he was done John had pulled back the cover and began to lift her from the bed.

One arm tucked around her neck he took a moment to adjust her head on his shoulder so he wouldn’t hurt her before he hooked the other under her knees and lifted her almost too easily from the mattress. She watched him turn and walk around the bed and out of the infirmary.

“You really think that’s a good idea?” Kate asked.

“If anyone can get through to her, it’ll be him,” Carson said and Kate couldn’t help but nod in agreement.

~~**~~

John moved through the corridors uncaring who saw them. His mind was focused on the too many questions running through his mind. The biggest of which was who was attempting to kill Elizabeth? But he had other questions that needed answering first.

When he’d first seen her on the floor of her room he’d ran a tangent between fear and heartache. How it would feel to lose her to know that he hadn’t been smart enough to realise she was capable of such an act. He couldn’t do it, he’d known before he’d moved that if she died there and then his own sole would have gone with her.

He turned a corner and ignored the researcher who followed them a few paces looking completely stunned until they vanished into a transporter and he carefully selected his location. It was only a few minutes from there to the balcony where John usually went when he needed time to think. There was already a blanket stretched out on the floor that he had pinned down over time with interesting things he’d found on his morning runs.

He carefully placed Elizabeth in the middle of the blanket, taking note that she didn’t move as he settled beside her. Several minutes passed, his eyes never leaving her face as he fiddled with the edge of her scrubs top.

“You’re missing a great sunrise,” he pointed out watching the top of the sun break through his peripheral vision.

“Should have left me in the infirmary then,” she said barely opening her mouth as though she didn’t care if the words were spoken.

His finger brushed against her side accidentally and she squirmed slightly at the sudden touch. John’s brow quirked and he ran his finger down her side as a test. Elizabeth squirmed again and he couldn’t fight the smile that grew on his face.

“Are you ticklish, Elizabeth?” he asked, then more seriously asked. “Or just sensitive? Are you schizophrenic? Why were you taking a drug for schizophrenia?”

“What are you on about?” she asked shifting away slightly as she teased her side again.

“I found the remains of a crushed tablet on the table in the mess,” he said. “Right were your cup had been.”

“I’m not on any drugs,” she spat.

“Where did you get the drug from, Elizabeth?”

“I’m not taking drugs,” she said more harshly.

“Right,” he said seething slightly, “you prefer the messy end.”

She moved away again this time turning on her side with her back to him. John followed moving closer to her back and resting all his weight on his left arm. Carefully, or almost daringly, he placed his free hand on her hip. His throat tightened and he tried hard to swallow and lick his lips before he spoke again.

“The IOA are idiots, but they won’t find anything to prove those reports,” he said showing that he’d read her mail. Carrying on, he slid his hand up under her scrubs top and then down over her stomach. “You’re mother’s being treated and I’ll help you, Elizabeth, anyway I can,” he added a touch of pressure to his hand and felt her stomach shudder and her jaw tightened.

“Those are private,” she said.

“You tried to kill yourself,” he said watching her reaction carefully. “I needed to know why and going through your things was the only way to do that.”

The lump in his throat grew as a tear slipped down over the bridge of her nose. He was getting something, at the very least she was responding to him and his intrusion into her room and private life. But at the same time he was causing her more pain and the last bout of that had almost broken his resolve.

“Do you remember,” he said wetting his lips again, “back in our first year, we went to that blackout world were nothing would work and got stuck there for three days?” He shifted, his shoulder and left arm starting to ache with the effort to be able to look down on her. “When we got back you came down those stairs so fast I thought you were gonna pin me to the floor and kiss me,” another tear slipped over the bridge of her nose and he swallowed at the lump again. “I was disappointed,” he whispered moving closer to her ears and feeling his lips brush against it, “when you reached the bottom and paused before approaching with your Doctor Weir face back in place.”

Elizabeth turned, just her upper body leaning back so she could look at him and he watched the tears slip and slide down the sides of her face from the new angle. He put pressure on her stomach again, never moving his hand as she twisted around.

“You didn’t do this to yourself,” he said firmly.

“Yes I did,” she said calmly.

“Why?”

“It’s too hard to fight them,” she said.

“I’ll help you, everyone will.”

“You can’t help me this time,” she said letting her eyes close and her head turn back to the sun now lighting the balcony as though it were heaven.

~~**~~

When Kate stepped into Elizabeth’s room she expected it to empty. She crossed the dark room to the desk and switched on the lamp before reaching for the first letter.

“Hey,” Ronon said making her jump and swing around to look at him.

“Hello,” she said relaxing. “I didn’t think anyone would be in here. Colonel Sheppard suggested I read these,” she indicated the letters and Ronon nodded. Kate turned back to the desk and picked up the white envelop that sat amongst personal papers and pulled out the letter. The IOA insignia was the first thing to catch her attention and she sighed as she started to read.

“Is this normal?” Ronon asked as she finished the letter.

“Is what normal?”

“Do people on Earth who intend to kill themself usually keep their things so neat?” he asked. Kate turned to look at him again and followed his eyes to the blood stain next to the bed.

“No,” she said at last turning back to him. “Depression usually results in a slow decline in personal care.”

“She probably hasn’t eaten properly in a week,” Ronon pointed out.

“True, but she has eaten and she’d had liquids. In most cases the decline in personal care is rapid, a lack of care to attention, not just in themselves but in their surroundings, leaving things out of place or dropping them carelessly around their room. Personal hygiene is reduced to them making it to the bathroom on occasion but usually the sight of themselves disgusts them enough to forget it and leave. In severe cases people can’t leave their own beds to use the bathroom, let alone clean their apartments or go to work.

“Stress takes a different approach, usually showing as a step back from social activity and talking at work only when required. For a leader like Elizabeth it should have been more visible.”

“It was,” Ronon said and Kate passed over the comment, no one should have felt guilty for what happened, it was Elizabeth’s choice. “Could she have done this to herself?”

Kate sighed. “Yes. The IOA has her under scrutiny again,” she indicated the letter still in her hand. “Only this time the pressure they are applying has been bumped up by the fact that they are taking into account her personal and professional backgrounds. If they decide they made a mistake with her, they could effectively ruin her career back home and she’d be reduced to nothing. To make matters worse, it says that they are getting reports from inside the city. She’s probably battling with a sense of betrayal as well as fear for her career.

“For Elizabeth though, the betrayal would sting more. She’s handpicked every person on this expedition and she continues to do so. Each person here made a choice, join the expedition or stay as they are back on Earth, no change to their lifestyle. But this person has decided, for whatever reason that they could use their time here to a different, more destructive end.”

“Kavanagh,” Ronon added.

“He was more the self preservation type, caring only what people thought of him and how, in his opinion, Elizabeth put herself on a pedestal above him. He also had an old fashioned view about women, thinking they belonged at home with the children instead of in command positions.”

“Sheppard doesn’t think she’s capable of killing herself.”

“I would normally agree with him,” she said turning back to the desk and picking up stack of letters.

Silence followed as she passed through the stack, it only took a few before she realised she was reading them as Elizabeth had and in the opposite order to John. The one before last was the one that made her gasp and breath out an ‘oh no’.

“What?”

“Her mother’s ill,” Kate said offering up the information just a little too quickly. Kate continued to the next letter, reading her mother’s reassurance to an unknown response to the bad news and explaining the treatment she was on. The line at the bottom caught Kate’s attention and lingered in her thoughts for a moment. Her mind flew over all the sessions she’d had with Elizabeth and how she had always seemed to believe in her mother and what she told her daughter.

“When does the Daedalus arrive?” she asked turning back to Ronon.

“Two days,” he said. “Why?”

“That’s how long we have to find out who’s been reporting to the IOA, and why,” her eyes darted back to the letter. “If she gets on it, we’re not likely to see her again.”

“She won’t survive the trip home,” Ronon said sharply. “How do we find them?”

~~**~~

John hadn’t realised he’d fallen asleep. Having given up on getting Elizabeth to talk to him beyond her previous statement he had wrapped his arms around her and pulled her against him as he sat against the wall. A slight cold had set in from the morning warmth and it took John a moment to realise there was no warm body in front of him. His eyes opened sharply and he looked around the balcony, the blanket was gone, though their weights were still in place and there was no sign of Elizabeth.

Panic set in before he could consider the full possibility of the two missing items and he got to his feet and moved to look down the edge of the tower. No sign of her there and he sighed in relief that she hadn’t jumped, been pushed of hung while he slept. Perhaps she’d taken the blanket so she didn’t have to walk back to the infirmary in nothing but her scrubs. John jogged back to the infirmary, his mind curious as to why she’d go back there or even bother to take the blanket. When he stepped in, his heart sank into his feet – she wasn’t there.

“Colonel?” Carson asked his brow furrowed in a question John didn’t want him to ask.

“I guess she didn’t come back here,” he said and saw a mix of anger and fear rush over the doctors features.

“You lost her?” he bellowed. “When I agreed to let you take her,” he said taking a step towards John, the anger searing through him.

“I’ll find her,” he said turning quickly from the room and starting a jog down the corridor. He didn’t; couldn’t kid himself that he could find her alone, he picked up every military officer he could find along the way and sent them to a different location to look for her. He turned at the last minute, making a subconscious decision on where he should go. He’d sent officers to the control to check there and her office, as well as the conference and balcony. He’d covered the mess, her room, his room and any balconies in the area before stopping Lorne and asking if he’s seen her. The answer had been no, but somewhere in the back of John’s mind he knew there was somewhere Elizabeth went to hide away, just as he did on that balcony.

He turned again and sprinted up the stairs passed the control room and into the Jumper Bay. John vaguely took note of the two men sitting on one side of the room, a table pc passing between them. But his eyes scanned for a moment for some tell tale sign that Elizabeth was or had been here. In the back of his mind he questioned his own backward thinking. Why had he thought she came here? He’d never seen her specifically come here, but he knew she wouldn’t go too far from the control room when she needed a break from the mayhem.

He walked slowly now, taking in every detail of the room, ladders up to the Jumper Pads higher on the wall, stairs doing the same job though he knew these large slowly sloping stairs could be easily manipulated into a ramp for loading goods. Higher up the wall there was a control centre, never used by the Atlantis expedition, and just to the side of it, he spotted something that didn’t belong.

The red corner of a cotton blanket, its edge tinged with black from some piece of equipment that had pinned it to the floor of a balcony for a good three months. As John made his way up the nearest ladder to the Jumper platform he looked for a way to get into the room beyond where Elizabeth was undoubtedly hiding. It wasn’t until he reached out for the corner of the blanket that he saw the handle, dug in against the side of the bay just an arms stretch away. He reached in finding a slip of metal and manoeuvred it until a square door opened beside him.

John quirked a brow and peeked in, it was just a passageway that you couldn’t stand up in unless you were two feet tall. The blanket that had given its position away was pulled tight against the wall, he figured it had snagged in the door and Elizabeth had given it up in her want to escape. He climbed in, taking the blanket with him and followed the crawlspace until it turned and expanded into a room.

It was extremely clear that Elizabeth had been here many times, the cushions lining the floor had been battered into a comfortable place to site – or as he noticed from Elizabeth’s current position on them – sleep. The other side of the room had a quick and haphazard shelf slotted into the metalwork of the city at a very slight angle and it was littered with books he had once seen in her room. A box of water bottles sat underneath it and near to where Elizabeth was sleeping and beside that...

John’s heart stopped, he couldn’t think straight enough for a second to consider the answers to one word questions. How? Where? When? Why?

Sitting on the floor between Elizabeth and an opened bottle of water was a tub of pills, it had been tipped, the few remaining tablets scattered across the floor just beyond her hand.

“Shit,” he managed to say before his foot took action and the suddenly familiar sensation of being detached from his own actions flittered through his mind. Twice now he’d found her like this, twice he had had the sudden moment of fear that she was dead and twice now he had moved to help without thinking what he should or could do. His hand rose to his earpiece. “Carson,” he didn’t wait for a reply as he crouched beside Elizabeth. “Jumper Bay, now!”

Her wrists were still wrapped in bandages and he could see the dried stain from the slow seep of blood that had continued after she had been taken to the infirmary. John quickly searched her neck for a pulse and found a very faint beat against his fingers. He watched her chest rise ever so slightly and fall again, it felt like a lifetime before the action was repeated.

“Why? Elizabeth,” he breathed as he quickly scooped the tablets back into the pot, noting as he shoved it into a pocket that it had no label or markings on it. He was ready to pick Elizabeth up when he remembered one small box shaped problem. How would he get her out of the room?

Thinking quickly, John moved back to the entrance and slide along it on his stomach to open the entrance. He stuck his head out and looked down just as Carson and his team came into the Bay.

“Up here,” he called down and vanished back into the room for Elizabeth. He gathered her up taking note that her lips had turned a slight shade of blue and turned back to the entrance. It was difficult sliding along the passage, keeping Elizabeth close to his body as he shifted only using his feet as leverage. He reached the entrance again just as Carson did and instantly the man reached in for her. Another medic moved to help and as soon as Elizabeth was out of the room John balled himself up turned around in the small space and climbed out.

To his horror, several people had started to gather in the main bay below. He noticed Chuck and Lorne amongst them as he listened to Carson’s attempt to stabilise his patient. He turned hearing footsteps on the ramp and found Teyla running in their direction, only a short distance behind her, Kate and Ronon followed, tablet PC in hand. Carson, however, couldn’t wait for them to reach him, he ordered the team back to the infirmary and they started down the ramp at a run.

Teyla pinned herself to the wall and then followed them as they passed her. Lower down, Kate and Ronon did the same only they continued up the ramp to John. He barely noticed the move, crumbling with exhaustion from his two hours sleep and the rush of adrenaline that pumped through his body. He managed to pull himself back against the wall as they reached the top and stopped in front of him.

“Give me a minute,” he said and closed his eyes. His mind raced, despite his need to relax for just a moment, a daunting though circling like a scary monster waiting for just the right moment to intensify his movement and pounce.

What if he had looked in all the other places himself?

He wanted to cry, it was a strange sensation. For all he’d ever been through in his life he couldn’t remember wanting to just sit and cry and for the first time ever he realised why. The thought of losing Elizabeth Weir was frightening him. He had seen her off world, protected her and worried about her, but never had he actually seen her on the edge of death.

If she died today, he’d put in a formal protest about how the whole report thing was dealt with. Then he’d pay her mother a visit and apologies for not being fast enough to reach her daughter, he’d tell her everything – screw the rules, if anyone deserved to know how or why her daughter died, it was be Penelope Weir.


	3. Chapter 3

He felt someone shift beside him and turned to see Kate slide down the wall to sit next to him. Her features were neutral, her ever present professional mind keeping complete control and he wondered if somewhere deep in the recesses of her mind she was scream to run and hide or if she was searching for sign she missed that could have stopped Elizabeth getting to this point.

His earlier thought that she hadn’t done this to herself were quickly abating, replaced with the image of the almost empty pill pot next to her hand and the open bottle of water. There was no way someone could force her to take those tables, and if they had, they would have stuck around to make sure she finished them and they did their job.

The headache he’d had yesterday after this started shot back to ache at the back of his eyes. The pounding reminding him of all the things that pointed to the horrible and frightening possibility that she did this to herself.

The IOA, threatening not just her job here in the city, but her whole career and personal profile back on Earth.

The fact that someone in the city was reporting lies back to them still left him with the thought that they, whoever they were, could be doing this.

Her mother with leukaemia, battling with treatment alone on Earth, not knowing where he precious and only child was.

And that damn last line on most of the correspondence between them. _‘When will I get a grandchild?’_

The fleeting and crazy thought that Elizabeth had forgotten to turn her calendar over made him feel sick and slightly dizzy. There was nothing funny about this situation, yet his mind seemed intent on betraying him with jokes and flirting points for a later on discussion with the city leader.

“What do you have, doc?” he said at last.

He heard Kate swallow and knew without looking that she exchanged a look with Ronon.

“We think we know who’s been sending the reports back to the IOA.”

John’s head came up fast and he felt it impact the wall behind him before he turned to her. He expected some psycho babble about Elizabeth’s mental state, or the questions about what had happened, not a statement like that.

“We asked Chuck to search through all the reports sent home in the last six months and give us any that were aimed at Elizabeth. He found several over the last three months, but none before that. They were written with two different styles of writing, meaning two different people reporting back, but they used the same signature, which wasn’t a name. So we traced the file, which didn’t help us at all.”

“Why not?”

“They obviously aren’t stupid,” Ronon said. “Used other people’s computers to write the reports and email them to Chuck.”

“They’ve used several researcher computers, a few scientists’ computers, including Doctor Zelenka’s and Doctor Becketts and then seemingly random people.”

“Like who?” John asked wondering they had at some point used their own computer.

“Teyla’s,” Kate said first, “and even Elizabeth’s own computer.”

He couldn’t take that last bit of information in properly, they had used Elizabeth’s computer to write a report about Elizabeth? The thing that stung most was the realisation that Elizabeth’s computer was never left out of sight. If she walked away from it in the day it was always in sight of Chuck and the others in the control room. Someone would have noticed a random person using her machine. At night she took it back to her room, he suspected she worked late, but that meant the computer was in her room all night. So whoever these people were, they went into her room while she was sleeping.

“We looked back at the new personnel about three months ago and found a pattern to the amount of times some computers were used. Like Carson’s is used more than Teyla’s as is Radek’s.”

“A doctor?” John asked putting the fact that Carson’s computer was used and he would more likely be away from his.

“A nurse,” Kate corrected. “By the name of Peter Belling.”

“And the other person?” John asked.

“A researcher, by the name of Tony Ashley. There is one other thing we should point out about these two. The reason we believe it is them.”

Kate turned away and exchanged a look with Ronon. John looked between the two wondering which of them would say something next and quickly became impatient with them both.

“Well?” he said.

“They’ve worked together for five years, in the same hospital. Room shared an apartment and all that. But what caught our attention was their neighbour.”

John looked between them again as Kate fell silent.

“Kavanagh,” Ronon added.

John shuddered. Not from fear the name invoked, that was quite impossible. But from a sudden and intense increase in his anger levels. All fear of losing Elizabeth, worry over all the horrors happening in her life and about her going crazy vanished instantly and were picked up by anger and hatred that he felt was always associated with Doctor Kavanagh. The man was a sexist pig and John had no time for him and he knew Elizabeth had even less care for his views on how women were perceived.

His jaw clenched, his back straightened and he balled his hands into fists in his lap. He hated that man so much right now that he could probably explode on the spot. Somehow, some horrible coincidence had brought two men into their home that had spent the last year or so listening to that idiot complain about Elizabeth.

“I want them arrested.”

“For what?” Ronon asked.

“I don’t care. Confine them to... somewhere so I can kill them later.”

Ronon moved away as John got up, he needed to move now, needed to walk of his surge of anger before he could find out how Elizabeth was. Or he really would kill them. Not that he wouldn’t if Elizabeth was already dead.

He pushed off from the wall and started down the ramp behind Ronon aware that Kate had got up and started to follow. But his mind was clouded right now, wild thought of these two working to ruin Doctor Weir and kill Elizabeth. He separated her like that without really understanding why. He flirted with her either way and he would never deny not looking at certain parts of her. In fact there was one time, out of sight from everyone, that she caught him looking at her breast and called him on it.

Ronon turned out of the Jumper Bay in one direction and John moved in another. His heart and mind racing like wild fire as he took off at a run. The beating so loud in his ears that he didn’t hear Kate call after him. He didn’t care right now, the only thing he wanted and needed to care about, was the woman stabbing at his heart. Elizabeth.

~~**~~

Teyla had been sitting in the control room listening to the discussion between Ronon and Doctor Heightmeyer when Chuck had practically jumped out of his seat. She had been mostly calm up until then, her heart settled from the previous day’s event. She was still confused, unable to understand why someone as strong willed as Elizabeth would want to end her existence so brutally. She needed to understand, but she wouldn’t ask now, Kate was far too busy working out the how’s and why’s while John was attempting to keep Elizabeth alive.

Though John’s reaction had worried her, he had been very despondent for a while back in her room and she had started to consider that there was or should be something between them. For years she’d seen their tenuous relationship grow, watched them flirt and tease each other and had seen the want on both their faces. But she understood this, she could see the problems after their reconnection with Earth the higher authorities putting on pressure where none was needed and it slowly pushed them further apart, keeping their distance.

She’d let out a sigh when Chuck reacted, out of his chair quickly the short man had turned and sprinted up the stairs. Teyla followed, her brow quirked for a reason he would suddenly move and head for the Jumper Bay. Stepping in there though, had been a bigger shock than entering Elizabeth’s room. They were there just in time to see Carson and one of the medics pull Elizabeth from the gap in the wall and place her on the bed. John climbed out moments later and Teyla knew it wasn’t good. She started to run without considering that she could get in the way, the ramp felt too long and her legs too slow and before she could reach the top the medical team were heading down.

For a brief second she considered carrying on up to see to John, but her heart seemed to want to follow Elizabeth and she turned to run back down the ramp with them. It seemed like an eternal jog to the infirmary her eyes watching the breathing apparatus they were using on Elizabeth’s mouth. Carson was on his knees riding the bed with her, one knee carefully between her legs the other on the side and he worked to attach required implements and insert IV needles as they moved. _‘All to make the process faster when we get there’_ , he had explained to her once in their first year. _‘The less time we spend attaching things when we get there, the more time we can use saving the patient.’_ It was shockingly reassuring.

Elizabeth was rushed straight into a room leaving Teyla standing outside caught between pacing the floor and sitting patiently. She tried sitting first, attempting at the same time to organise her thoughts only to become frustrated and get to her feet to start pacing. Out of the corner of her eye she watched Ronon enter the room and speak with one of the other doctors, curiosity turned her to watch and she thought he’d come to check on Elizabeth for John when he moved towards her.

“Ronon?” she question, but he didn’t answer, didn’t even stop to look at. He opened the door and moved into the room. Teyla watched from the threshold, her eyes fixed on Elizabeth’s body, her face out of sight behind a nurse as Carson shouted at Ronon to leave.

“Whose Belling?” he asked. Teyla’s attention was drawn, like everyone else in the room to a tall thin man standing at Elizabeth’s bedside attaching a liquids bag to her IV tube.

“What the hell’s going on?” Carson bellowed.

Ronon didn’t answer. Instead he moved around and placed a heavy hand on Bellings shoulder before guiding him out of the room.

“He won’t be back,” Ronon said turning away as Belling began to protest.

“I have to go back, she needs help,” he said as Ronon guided him around the corner.

“She had enough,” Ronon responded. Teyla didn’t hear the reply, Carson had drawn her attention back into the room with the order of the stomach pump and Teyla instinctively reached out and closed the door. This was one Earth expression she wasn’t sure she wanted to know the meaning of though her mind had already begun to speculate. She heaved a sigh and moved back to sit in the chair and wait.

~~**~~

“Hello, Peter,” Kate said indicating Peter to a seat opposite her in the office she had taken for her meetings. She noted idly that Ronon kept his stance at the door, his menacing form towering over them and obviously making Nurse Belling extremely uncomfortable. She wanted to thing ‘good’, but ethically she couldn’t do that, at least not yet.

“What’s this about? Why am I suddenly under house arrest?”

“Your papers are being processed for a return to Earth,” she said not really answering his question. “I’ve put in for a transfer for you back to your previous position.”

“Why? I haven’t done anything wrong?”

“Ruining Weir’s life isn’t enough for you?”

“What?” Belling said indignantly turning to look at Ronon. Kate didn’t let her eyes drift off the man for a second, ever flinch of tick could be his telling that he had some form of guilt or remorse to offer.

“You know Doctor Benjamin Kavanagh,” Kate question. Peter turned back to her a slight amount of fear and realisation on his features. He nodded. “Between you and Anthony Ashley, you have taken up his task of reporting Doctor Weir’s indiscretions to the IOA.”

“What? No!” he said. “No, neither of us have written to the IOA, we wouldn’t know who to write to.”

“Then where do you send your letters?”

“To Benjamin,” he said, “always to Benjamin. He wanted us to write and tell him all the stupid stuff she does, but after the first few letters of reporting nothing back we started to make things up to keep it interesting. Telling him rumours we heard about her and Colonel Sheppard.”

Kate finally looked away from him and exchanged a glance with Ronon. They had been given the same story from Tony and with the same amount of confusion on their faces. Either they were really good at lying or they were telling the truth. If they weren’t lying though, that meant Benjamin Kavanagh as submitting the reports under their names.

“Why would I want to report Doctor Weir?” he asked almost pleading her. “She’s done nothing wrong, everyone makes mistakes and in the heat of the moment she had to make the worst choices possible. Benjamin’s an idiot, but he’s also a good man, we were just feeding this obsession he seems to have with her. Nothing more,” he paused and licked his lips. “Please, I don’t want to go back to that dead end job, I can learn more here and I finally feel like I’m helping people.”

Kate exchanged another look with Ronon, she couldn’t deny they seemed to be telling the truth. They wanted to be here and had no reason to upset the balance of the city. Though something niggled at the back of her mind about Tony, something he had said in their meeting didn’t seem right and for some reason she wanted to go back over all the facts.

“For now,” she said. “You will remain under house arrest, your papers need to be signed off before the transfers can be put into effect and we’re not willing to do that just yet,” she nodded to Ronon who opened the door and ordered the guards to return the man to his room and keep him there.

As the door closed she brought a hand up to massage her temples between thumb and two fingers. Nothing made sense; the IOA had already discounted Kavanagh’s claims against Elizabeth. Though under another name they may not put the two together.

Kate sat back in the chair as Ronon dropped down opposite her. She didn’t look at him, choosing instead to rest her head back on the cushion and close her eyes. The first time she’d noticed a change in Elizabeth’s behaviour was their last session two weeks ago, it had been brushed off as tiredness after a long hard day. At that point she would have known about her mother’s condition and two days later, with the arrival of the Deadalus, would come the letter from the IOA.

Other things niggled though. Why would she continue until the last day to care about her make up in the morning? Kate remembered her visit after the first incident, Elizabeth’s eyes streaked with tears that smudge carefully applied mascara and washed off eyeliner.

Why would she continue to do her job and carry on doing so after hours? They had looked into that specifically, seen the routine, found out from Chuck that she left her office at 6pm, with her computer, and wasn’t seen until 6am the next day. Work related files on her computer had been written at two in the morning, the lack of sleep showing in her wording or forgetful punctuation.

Why had she bothered to go to mess hall that even, and other evenings that people had seen her attend? John himself had sat with her that last night, had tried to involve her in conversation.

Where had the powdered table that had been in her drink come from? Had Elizabeth added it with shaking hands before the others arrived?

So many questions and too many speculations thudded through her brain like an out of control rollercoaster of disaster. To top it off a conversation about parenting had lingered at the front of her brain since reading Elizabeth’s mail. Another thing Kate knew about their leader that she kept carefully hidden was a desire to have her own family. That she was heartbroken to have failed twice at getting that and giving her mother a grandchild and in one particularly fun session with Elizabeth, Kate had managed to steer the conversation to who in Atlantis they would like to have children with.

 _“Doctor Pachter,” Kate admitted. Elizabeth’s jaw dropped and she watched the shock turn quickly into a grin._

 _“Well, yes, I can see the attraction. Especially for a botanist, imagine the garden you could have for your children to play in.”_

 _“Now your turn,” Kate insisted sitting back and watching Elizabeth to see if she would answer too fast with someone or think through telling the truth. Moments past as she watched her consider the answer._

 _“Mike Branton,” she said. Kate brows shot up._

 _“That’s not your first choice,” she said and watched with a gleam of success as Elizabeth blushed. “Who’s your first choice?”_

 _“I’d rather not say,” she said and looked away._

 _“I know who it is,” Kate offered turning Elizabeth back to her and taking in the amount of fear that flittered across her face. “I’m not in the habit of giving out secrets.”_

 _“No,” Elizabeth offered then smiled. “You’re in the matchmaker habit from what Doctor Reed tells me.”_

 _“Well in my defence she stood and almost literally swooned over Marcas Picher.”_

 _Elizabeth laughed._

 _“John Sheppard,” Kate said. She drew the name out then to add to Elizabeth’s quickly growing embarrassment added, “Lieutenant Colonel John Sheppard. Unless I’m reading that all wrong you and secretly lust after Rodney McKay or Ronon Dex.”_

 _“God no,” Elizabeth said a little quickly and then realised her mistake. She had just admitted to feelings for head of Atlantis’ military. Kate sat forward._

 _“How deep do the feelings go?” she asked seriously._

 _When Elizabeth’s eyes came up to meet hers she found a raw and deep emotion that told Kate there had never been another man in her life before Atlantis – despite knowing otherwise. There shouldn’t have been any other man._

“Well,” she said with a deep exhale. “At least we know what’s going on with reports. Now all we have to do is stop them ruining her life with the investigation.”

“Maybe we can get them to write to the IOA and explain.”

Kate lifted her head to look at him with a smile. Sometimes she forgot there was a brain in that muscular body, it had the tendency to be very adaptive when the time was right.

~~**~~

John couldn’t do it anymore, for the last two days he had avoided the most populated parts of the city. He had left Rodney to the command, Carson to his care of Elizabeth and Lorne to deal with the military while he shut himself away in the depth of the city. He’d ran his morning course at least eight times a day and collapsed exhausted on the floor of his balcony only to wake up wishing she was still there with him and none of this had happened.

But today was the day. The Deadalus was due back at the city and John would see her leave once and for all and he couldn’t let that happen without a fight or at the very least one last goodbye. He also needed to catch up with Kate and Ronon, find out what they had learned from the two men who should still be under arrest. But he didn’t want to go straight to them, he needed to check, make sure this hadn’t been one really bad dream.

He made his way to Elizabeth’s room first, rudely ignoring anyone who tried to stop him or offer him a ‘good morning’. He stepped into the bright room, the sun glaring mockingly through the window as he took in the still tidy room. Kate had left Elizabeth’s letter in their box on the desk and the IOA letter in front of it. The delicately decorated knife John had brought for Elizabeth had been removed from the room, its black stand still resting on the shelf by her door and the blood, along with its smell, had been cleaned up. What John saw now, was Elizabeth’s room how it should be.

He moved to the bed and sat down for a moment, the soft mattress dipping with his weight as John pictured her lying comfortably; sleeping peacefully back weeks ago before any of her problems had started to escalate to personal situations. A splash of red caught his eye as he turned awkwardly to look around the rest of the room and John got up and moved to the other side of her bed to pick up her shirt. His brow creased, she was so meticulous in her room that it seemed extremely unusual to find her day’s shirt on the floor. He scanned the room again, her washing hamper nowhere in the area and John moved into the bathroom to look for it.

Confusion continued to knock at his brain with snippets of information as he dropped the top into the basket. The sleeve caught on the edge and John freed it, only to discover a small rip, like a knife mark. Had she struggled? Put her arm in front of her face?

John shook it off. He’d spent days going over the possibilities and he couldn’t deny the fact that all the horror Elizabeth was going through could lead her to take this action. He left the room and wandered around aimlessly for a few moments before heading for the Jumper Bay. He crossed the large room with determination in his step and ignored Lorne and his team as they straightened to attention to show respect. Without stopping to think, John climbed the ladder to Elizabeth’s hidden room and crawled through the small passage to the bright hideaway beyond.

He dropped unceremoniously onto one of the pillows and fixed his eyes on the bottle of water. It was still there, still opened and half empty. No one had come in here to clean up like they had her room. It had been left exactly as he had found it; only Elizabeth and the pills were missing from the picture. He was pleased about that fact, he couldn’t take it if she tried again and he was pretty sure at this point that had she succeeded he would have given up his life in the city. Too many reminders of her would linger and he would only be able to hold unreasonable contempt for the person who took her place.

He scanned the bookshelf, a range of mystery and romance novels, small and unobtrusive in her collection. Several authors appeared twice as he took in titles and names. Then he paused. Mid way along the shelf the books turned from upright to lying on their back, two books from the top, was his book. War and Peace.

John moved off the pillow and slipped the book out from the pile. He didn’t remember lending it to her, in fact, he hadn’t. Likewise, he hadn’t seen it for ages, having given it up as a lost cause towards the end of their first year; he was sure he’d dropped it into a storage box and shoved it under his bed. Brow creased he tried to remember if he’d ever told her that snippet of information. He had, he had told her when she asked if he finished book, that he’d given up and ditched it into a box.

Curious to know if she’d finished it, John turned the book so he could look for a bookmark or folded page and found a page, folded like a letter slipped in about half way through. She probably hadn’t finished, but she had managed to get further than him. Opening the book, John pulled the paper out and flattened it out to read.

Instantly he felt his heart clench and his fists tighten around the book. The anger seeped into his body like a liquid oozing through his pours in the wrong direction to infest his blood. Benjamin Kavanagh once again showing his stupidity, ego and sexist opinion. His hatred of Elizabeth getting the better of him as he told her in no uncertain terms that if she didn’t give up her life, her mother would be his next target. John hand tightened around the letter and as he started to ball it up he caught sight of the ink on the other side, hand written in an eloquent hand.

 _Out of the depths of despair, there is no hope;  
No shining star to let it out.  
Alone in the darkness,  
I alone reside;  
Can't feel the warmth of the sweet sunshine.  
So many burdens,  
And not enough help;  
Can't show the weakness, and let it all out.  
Too many pains,  
Too many doubts;  
Can't keep going,  
I need to get out._

The initial EW tipped off the corner of the page and John sank down to the ground in defeat. He still wasn’t sure, the poem showed him she had considered ending it to protect her family. Had the first time been an attack and the second Elizabeth’s way out? Or had it been the other way around?

John pocketed the letter, placed the book back on the shelf and turned. He paused; the pen she had used sat on the corner of the shelf, tucked underneath a book and John reached for it, picked up his book and opened it to the first page. The blankness soon held his scribble as he write a simple message for her to find, or he hoped she would find, later. Then he dropped the pen into the water box, the book on top of the pile and left the room.

Lorne and his team were still in the Jumper Bay as made his way down and he wondered if they had lingered to make sure he was alright. John stopped a few paces away from them and noted that they all looked extremely concerned, they should, no one had seen him for two days, he had gone down to the kitchens after hours to make himself a sandwich or whatever he could find.

“Tell me Belling and Ashley are still under arrest.”

“Yes, sir. Doctor Heightmeyer has papers ready for them to transfer Earth side.”

John nodded and moved on.

“Sir?”

“To your duties,” he called over his shoulder.

Leaving the Jumper Bay, John made his way to the infirmary, aware the Ronon had turned to follow him and Teyla had vanished off in a different direction as he passed them. He didn’t turn to talk to Ronon and thankfully the man didn’t attempt conversation with him.

In the infirmary, John found two men standing guard outside a room, he knew without thinking that Elizabeth was inside and he passed between the men without so much as a flinch. A nurse on the inside sat with her computer on the side and he suspected from the green eh could see on the screen she had run out of work to do long ago and had taken up solitaire. John nodded to her when she looked up and considered asking her to leave before he approached Elizabeth’s bed.

Her eyes were closed, but her breathing to heavy for her to be asleep. The vivid memory of her unresponsive form as he’d unhooked her from the monitors days ago and lifted her from the main infirmary bed flowed through him and tired of the game and restless nights he pulled the nearest stool over as noisily as he could.

She didn’t move, but John was aware that the nurse was watching him intently by this point. Silence prevailed and Elizabeth continued to maintain her posture and stubbornness. After several minutes he turned to the nurse, still watching him with a quirked brow, and nodded. She got up and left the room and John made a quick note that Carson and Ronon were standing outside before the door closed.

“Tell me you don’t love your mother,” he said, the words leaving his mouth before he could consider their effect. Elizabeth’s eyes snapped open to glare at him. “Tell me she means nothing to you, that you could hurt her so easily by doing this to yourself.”

“I’m doing this for her,” she said.

“No, he’s doing this,” he said holding up Kavanagh’s letter. “He’s doing this to you.”

“He’s on Earth, not here with the knife and pills.”

“What does he mean by _‘Let them do their jobs’_?”

She didn’t answer and John watched her swallow nervously. It was then that he knew, that he realised the truth, the fear in her eyes. Kavanagh had sent Belling and Ashley to his dirty work because he couldn’t get back into Atlantis to do it himself.

“Which of them did it?” he asked.

“I did it,” she said through a tight jaw.

“I don’t believe you and I won’t believe for one second you’re that weak. You wouldn’t give up so easily.”

“Then you don’t know me.”

“You’re right,” he said making sure to keep eye contact with her and let her see the hurt the words caused. “I was falling for the wrong side of you.”

He got up and moved over to the stool the nurse had recently occupied. A sharp intake of breath from behind told him a battle was being waged back on her bed. He didn’t turn back; he couldn’t see what he’d just done, the pain, the hurt the cut he’d just sliced across her heart.

“Tell me the truth, Elizabeth. Did you try to kill yourself?”

Silence. He started to wonder why it was never as quiet as it sounded. The city’s hum seemed louder and the blood rushing through his ears seemed to increase the sound of his beating heart. The seconds seemed to draw own, slowing painfully despite the speed of his pulse. He wouldn’t listen unless she gave him the truth and that meant her answer would be a negative.

Silence. John started to consider that he should turn back, see what she was doing, where she was looking, but he could still hear the dimmed beep of her heart monitor sitting agile next to her bed and hooked to stickers that littered her chest.

“No,” she breathed at least and John could have melted to the ground in that instant.


	4. Chapter 4

"What's going on?" Carson asked stepping up to Ronon. The man loomed over him and there was never a doubt in Carson's mind that Ronon could cause some serious damage if he wanted to.

"Sheppard’s in there," Ronon said, his eyes still fixed on the door opposite him.

"Finally crawled out of the woodworks then," he offered. "How long's he been in there?"

"Five minutes," Ronon said just as the door opened and the nurse stepped out.

Carson nodded to the nurse to show it was okay for her to walk away right now. He didn't want Elizabeth left alone, he'd set up the shift in his nurses to sit with her, but if should someone else come along, such as John or Kate Heightmeyer he wouldn't say no to the nurse for leaving them alone to talk. In John's case, he would have expected her to leave sooner; there was no shortage of rumours about relationships between the two leaders. In his time he'd heard everything from a simple kiss to them secretly being married. He knew none of it was real, there had only been a strong friendship between them for the last few years. Sure he'd seen the looks and the flirting, but so had everyone. Curiosity was a killer in times like this, a door stood between them and answers to what was going on, shamefully Carson wished he'd placed her in an observation room.

"Sheppard had something in his hand," Ronon offered after a moment of silence. "Maybe he found something. Do you think we should go in?"

"No," Carson turned at the unexpected voice and found Kate and Teyla approaching. "Regardless to his reasons for being in there, he has the chance to get some answers from her or talk her around. He knows a lot about her, more than any of you standing here."

"I won't argue with that," Ronon said.

"You are the one who knows her the most," Teyla interjected.

"As true as that is, I know too much. I know who she respects and cares for. I know what scares her more or how it feels to watch people walk into possibly dangerous situations every day," she paused and looked at Teyla. "Sometimes too much information can be a problem."

"So we just wait?" Ronon asked.

"Yep, either John will call for someone to help him or he'll get answers."

"Or he'll be in there for hours and come out frustrated and return to his hide out."

"Or that," Kate said with pursed lips. "What time will the Deadalus be here?"

"In about an hour," Carson said, "I'm ready for a fight, I can't release her in this condition, she's not strong enough physically to be transported anywhere."

"I'm not willing to let her go either," Kate said. As a psychiatrist she could argue that her mental state was unstable and could lead to problems on the way home and for a three week flight that should hold a lot of weight with Colonel Caldwell.

"Do we know if they are bringing someone to take her place?" Teyla asked.

"Not a clue, I suspect they will, but I wouldn't even like to guess at who."

"They better not think they are here permanently," Ronon groused. Carson secretly agreed with him, but probably not for the same reasons. It was common knowledge that both he and Teyla respected Elizabeth immeasurably, the help and protection she has given them both couldn't go unnoticed. Not to mention the fact that neither of them were expected to follow any of the rules that the expedition was.

Carson sighed and dropped into a nearby seat. It was just a waiting game for them now. However long John was in there they would be sitting out here wishing they could listen in.

~~**~~

He had turned around slowly, his eyes instantly on her face. He took in the pain, the tears the plea in her eyes that he wanted to banish from her features forever. They didn’t belong there. Elizabeth Weir was a stronger woman than what he saw, but something, somewhere in the last few months had broken her resolve. She didn’t deserve this. She could have dealt with the IOA, with her mother and even with the fact that someone was reporting her. But the threat that had been added to her family if she didn’t let someone kill her was the end of the rope.

John crossed the room to her bedside ignoring the dry throat and urges to wet his lips. He leaned in close and she turned away from him, he suspected she knew he had intended to kiss her, even just a short kiss. But he didn’t back away, not yet.

“Let me help you,” he whispered. “Let me deal with them and the IOA on your behalf,” he finally wet his lips. “And when that’s cleared up, let me take you home to see your mother,” he placed his hand on her belly. “Let me help you.”

Her arms moved before he could react and she wrapped them around his neck. He let her pull him close, his own hands moving around her and he lifted her up she he could straighten and perch on the edge of the bed. He kept her close, feeling every shudder pass through her as she sobbed into his shoulder. He couldn’t work out right now if it was relief or fear that drove her tears, if it had been him, the pressure placed enough to drive him to her current situation it would have been relief. A sense that finally the burden of the nightmare was no longer a solely owned weight. He was surer of this as she relaxed against him, almost crumpling in as the pain was finally let out.

Normally, John was bad at the comforting side of a relationship; it was what brought his relationships to an end. Something in the back of his mind just screamed at him not to let go of her, let her get it out and she’d talk when she was ready. Hopefully she’d tell him which of them took a dagger to her wrists. He had his suspicions that Belling, being the nurse, had given her the drugs to take and probably even managed to slip something into her drink days ago when this nightmare began.

“Ashley,” she breathed, letting out a final sob, but refusing to let him go. “Tony Ashley, he came to me after I left the Mess Hall a few days ago, gave me the letter from Kavanagh. I tried to fight him,” she sobbed again and John had to adjust his hold as her body went completely limp. “It felt like it was impossible, I don’t know why I couldn’t.”

“He drugged you. Did he force you to take the drugs yesterday?”

“He followed me there,” she said and John remembered the little room with no other escape, “told me if I didn’t take them he’d be writing back to Kavanagh to say I was being difficult,” she pulled back at this point he found himself lost in her pleading eyes. “I couldn’t let him, John, I’m so afraid of what he’ll do to my mother. I…”

She trailed off and choked out another sharp cry. John reached quicker than he though possible; shifting forward on the bed he wrapped his arms back around her. One hand cradled her head to his should, he didn’t want to pull away again. The other hand ran up and down her back soothing as placed an unintentional kiss on the back of her neck. Comforting felt so natural with her, everything felt so easy with her, even hard decisions about what he should be doing in his job. That’s why he’d come to Atlantis in the first place. That stupid coin toss would have left him back there in McMurdo.

She’d saved him back then, now it was his turn to save her. And he would. He’d stand at the door and stop anyone from coming in to take her from him; from the city. She belonged here with _her_ team.

~~**~~

“Okay,” Jack O’Neill said stopping a few feet from the miserable looking people sat in the infirmary. “I was told I would find Doctor Weir and, or Colonel Sheppard here.”

Every looked away quickly and Jack quirked a brow. Finding John or Elizabeth in the infirmary was bad news, especially since they weren’t in the waiting area with everyone else. Finding them both absent was something new altogether.

“So,” he said elongating the word, “who wants to explain what’s going on?”

Silence followed and Jack looked between each person wondering if any of them would freely give an explanation or if he would have to start asking specific and awkward questions.

“Elizabeth,” Teyla started slowly and he could see her picking her words carefully, “tried to end her own life.”

“What?!” he didn’t expect anything so drastic. “When?”

“Which time?” Ronon said and pushed off from the wall to walk a few paces away.

“How many times did she try?” He said his voice rising quickly.

“Twice,” Carson said, “She was found in her room three days ago, her wrists cut.”

“Then again yesterday with a pot of tables,” Doctor Heightmeyer added. Jack stared at her for a moment in disbelief, if anyone had tried to tell him that Elizabeth Weir could possess the mindset to do something like this he would have laughed. But there were four serious faces telling him that she could and had tried it.

“Beckett, Heightmeyer, a meeting room if you wouldn’t mind,” he said, sound more controlled than he felt. Kate moved first, pushing to her feet and moving past him and out to wards the door. Jack glanced at Teyla before following. Kate led them to a room a few doors away from the main infirmary, Jack made a point of shutting the door behind them before slowly turning to look at them.

“I’d like to know, what would push Elizabeth to do this, surely the IOA aren’t that much of a pain. Secondly, how it went unnoticed, by you,” he said pointedly to Kate, “that she was capable and,” he turned to Carson, “how she got hold of drugs.”

“I don’t know, my stores are manned by several nurses, no one beyond a doctor has access to them,” Carson offered. “Unless she was given them by a member of my staff she can’t have gotten them.”

“I want a list of who has access,” Jack said and watched Carson nod before he turned to Kate.

“I meet with Elizabeth every second week, there was nothing until three days ago to say she was capable. Teyla and John had both noticed she was down, but no one considered she would go this far.”

“What tipped the balance?”

“A combination of things,” she said. “The IOA, the fact that two members of her expedition were sending letters about her back home, her mother’s ill and a long existing pressure from her mother to have a family.”

“You know how’s reporting her?” He was a little shocked by this. The IOA had only told him of one person reporting home, not two.

“A researcher; Tony Ashley,” Kate said and then stole a glance at Carson, “and a nurse by; Peter Belling.”

“Oh dear god,” Carson said and turned to look out the window.

“I’m gonna go out on a limb and guess he is one of the nurses with access to the drugs?”

“Aye,” Carson said.

“They weren’t reporting directly to the IOA,” Kate said, “they were writing home to a friend of theirs. Benjamin Kavanagh.”

Jack instantly cringed. He hated that guy, the horrid memory of a video he had received in their first year here shot back to the forefront of his memory. The boredom of watching this guy as he complained about having a woman for a leader – and he had no other way of describing the degusted look and venom the man seemed to have for her.

“Kavanagh,” he hissed, “I banned him from returning when he demanded, to my face, that I remove Elizabeth from Atlantis for physical abuse. I refused back then and guessing he would go to the IOA got his last medical report from the Deadalus. Not a scratch on him.”

“Ashley and Belling told me that they never had anything to tell him, that all the choices Elizabeth made were reasonable at the time, to get the job done. So they started writing the rumours they heard about her and John.”

“Rumours?” Jack asked. “As in far from the truth?”

“Yes,” Kate answered, “there have been loads of them about their flirting, but it’s all harmless fun. It’s built a good relationship between them.”

“That’s a little suspect isn’t it?” Jack said his mind whirling through the information he’d just been given. “These two just happen to be friends of Kavanagh, they just happen to have access to medication and write back to him.”

“Aye, Colonel Sheppard thought the same, came to the idea that these two did this instead of Elizabeth.”

“You don’t agree?”

“I honestly don’t know what to think,” Carson said and Jack watched Kate’s face change to show her agreement.

“I need to talk to Elizabeth,” Jack said and turned to the door and paused. “Why were you all sitting outside?”

“John’s been a little isolated for the last 24 hours. Ronon said he had something with him when he went in.”

“Right,” Jack said and turned to the door again.

“General,” Kate stopped him and turned to face her and waited. “Are you here to take Elizabeth’s place?”

“For now. Until either the IOA send her back or find a replacement.”

“She can’t go home,” Carson said. “Not in her current state, medically and mentally she won’t survive the journey.”

“I’m gonna talk to Elizabeth and Sheppard,” he said not answering their want to keep her in the city. He couldn’t blame them, he didn’t want to see Elizabeth pushed out, especially not for some egotistical, pig-headed moron like Kavanagh. He wanted to stay Earth-side and fight their investigation tooth and nail – literally. She had done thing wrong as far as he was concerned and she didn’t deserve to be politically ruined because of rumours and misinformation.

He turned into the infirmary, ignored Ronon and Teyla and opened the door to Elizabeth’s room. He was very aware that both the people he had passed had moved to the door with him, but his mind was running backward over the conversation he’d just had with Carson and Kate while taking in the fact that John was cradling Elizabeth. John’s back was to the door, he perched on the edge of her bed and kept her close. Elizabeth’s face turned into his neck and he could hear her sobbing. He turned and motioned Teyla and Ronon away before stepping into the room and closing the door.

He considered clearing his throat, making them both jump and turn to look at him. But somewhere in the back of his head he knew Elizabeth deserved this moment of compassion. Instead he rounded the bed and stopped in John view and raised a finger to his lips to silence him. He could see Elizabeth’s face, tear streaked and resting on a wet patch of John’s t-shirt, her eyes closed gave him the impression she was heading for a very uncomfortable sleep. John moved a hand and held out a piece of paper which Jack took with a confused expression. Unfolding it, he read the letter quickly and looked up at John with an even more confused expression.

“I saw Ashley near her room the other night,” John said quietly. Jack knew he was guessing the story had reached him by now. “I saw him and Belling in the Jumper Bay when I found her with the pills. And I remember seeing Belling in the corridor when I took Elizabeth from the infirmary yesterday morning. He seemed a little shocked – probably because she was still alive.”

“She alright?”

“She’s afraid,” John said and Jack could see the same fear echoed on his face. “She doesn’t want to lose her job here, her friends or her career. She just wants to carry on, see her mother and…”

“Give her a grandchild?” Jack said with a smile. “I’ve been told all the things that have added up to now.”

“Pretty complicated sum,” John said, “sir.”

“She gave into them?”

“What would you do in her place? Life collapsing around you and your only parent threatened by an idiot.”

“Please stop talking about me as if I’m not here,” Elizabeth’s voice was a little unexpected.

“Sorry,” Jack offered, “I thought you were asleep.”

“So did I,” John said shifting and laying Elizabeth carefully back on the bed. He didn’t move when she was settled, and Jack made note of the fact that she seemed almost like a rag doll and that John took hold of her hand.

“How’s it going?” Jack asked when Elizabeth turned to look at him. She closed her eyes for a moment and Jack wished he could take the question back.

“Drained,” she said simple. He knew it was the best word for how she felt right now, the drugs probably still in her system taking all her strength, the sense of uselessness that must have taken over when she read the letter still clutched in his hand.

“You need to rest,” he said. “Let Sheppard and Carson take care of you while I take care of the IOA and these morons,” he indicated her letter and watched her eyes flick to John with a touch of anger. “I’ll come check on you later,” he said not wanting to be involved in the conversation that would soon follow. He smiled at her quickly before leaving the room.

~~**~~

Teyla stood watching as the two men were pushed into separate cells on board the Deadalus. She was thankful only for the fact that they were kept apart and had been since they were found as the cause to their current mess. She couldn’t kid herself, no one in the city could, this was far from over and chances are more horrors had yet to happen.

Ronon gave Belling a particularly hard shove as he paused in front of her, she could see the plea in the man’s eyes. He had maintained his innocence from the start, constantly saying he had nothing to do with the attempts to kill Elizabeth. Jack had quickly lost his temper with the man and demanded to know why he gave drugs to Ashley and what he thought the man would do with them. She remembered his answer clearly, if he wasn’t innocent they had thought this through carefully, or at the very least Peter Belling had.

 _“They’re just sleeping pills,” he had stated._

Thankfully, Jack was not easily fooled, he had gone on to ask about the other drug Elizabeth had been given, this time against her will. Belling hadn’t been able to give an answer. For now thought, that part of the story was out of their hands, both men would have to be questioned by authorities back on Earth and the IOA would determine if they had any part to play in the current situation.

For Teyla though, she found herself more and more confused with the people she had chosen to live with. Despite the fact that everyone now knew Elizabeth had not attempted to take her own life, the questions still buzzed around her head. Why would someone do it? The people here in Atlantis had never shown any disregard for life, instead they all seemed to cherish it. Perhaps because they faced death so often, perhaps because their jobs took them to places or situations where life was flaunted so easily. Thought that thought now added the question about how life was seen on Earth. Every day she worked with men who used weapons that could quiet easily kill and every day despite these weapons, they thought for life. To say the least, she was confused.

Still, she maintained that the questions could wait until things had settled down and between now and then she would do whatever she could to help Elizabeth and she would follow the orders set out by General Jack O’Neill.

Both men now secure in their cells, Teyla turned to follow Ronon off the ship and back to the control room. They walked in silence and she began to consider that Ronon was just as confused by the events as she was, though it disturbed her that he never showed any emotion, he always hid his feelings and confusion as though they would eventually kill him.

The gate was open as they reached the top of the stairs and Teyla slowed her pace as she approached the General. The video screen was active with General Landry on the other end and the discussion seemed to be turning into an argument.

“Hank, she’s not healthy enough at the moment to take a three week trip.”

“I understand that, but the Deadalus has medical personnel on board.”

“Whereas that’s true, I doubt Carson or Kate will let her go so easily, not to mention to recall was for an investigation I’ve just supplied proof was falsified. I will not put her on that ship while her mental and physical heath is suffering. The IOA will just have to bite me,” the grin he gave was daringly defiant and Teyla’s brow quirked at it. “She can recover her while they investigate; if they are stupid enough to rule against her then she can come home, otherwise she stays where she is.”

General Landry sighed. His head low, Teyla could see him considering the information and she knew he couldn’t do a think from where he was. There was no one here who outranked O’Neill and for the first time she was thankful for him being sent. Against John, Carson and Kate, Colonel Caldwell could have fused them to move Elizabeth to the ship, but he couldn’t do anything against a General.

“The prisoners are on board?” Landry asked after a moment and Jack turned to look at her. She nodded.

“They are now,” he said. “Locked up and ready to go.”

“Very well,” Landry said and paused as someone told him something. “Send them back, I’ll deal with the IOA on your behalf, but don’t be shocked if they aren’t happy with you.”

“I never am,” Jack said with a grin.

“I’m too old for these debates,” Landry said before the connection was cut and the gate shut down.

“Well, she’s still here,” Jack said turning to her and Ronon and anyone else who wanted to listen in. “But as far as they are concerned she doesn’t work here anymore.”

Ronon grunted before turning and leaving the room, she had a feeling he had wanted to something in support. The words ‘then neither do I’ came to her mind and she wondered if Ronon had the same thought. She trusted Elizabeth and John and together they worked extremely well. Teyla also found she liked the city run by someone who could see both military and non-arms methods and would attempt to use the first only in desperate times. Under military control, she suspected, things would change from the cool calm Elizabeth had created to something less pleasant.

For now though, Elizabeth wasn’t well enough to work and she guessed it would be sometime before that changed, so she would make do. She would just have to hope that the IOA members were not as idiotic as everyone seemed to think they were.

~~**~~

John was starving, he hadn’t eaten much for the last day or so and he suspected Elizabeth had eaten half the amount, if that. He practically bounced as nurse brought in two trays of food for them, the smell of the mess hall food instantly tingled his nose. He’d always liked the food here, most bases food was created quickly to feed the masses and therefore shortcuts and cheap materials were used, Atlantis though had not been forced into that. Ignoring the end of their first year here where food supplies had become scares, the mess staff had managed to make great meals and even managed to integrate strange Pegasus fruits and vegetables into the ingredients.

Elizabeth had fallen asleep after the general had left and he’d sat here since then watching the slow rise of her chest and the flicker of the eyelids as REM set in. She was calm and content for the first time since he’d met her and John found it hard not to sit and study her features. No creased brow, or quirked eyebrow, no worries or frowns, no sadness, no grin, no cheeky smirk as she flirted with him, just peaceful and relaxed. She was beautiful. He’d never really seen it before, always choosing to keep his distance to avoid having a weakness; he’s focused on her job. Leader of Atlantis; his boss. He adjusted the trays so they both fit on the bed table and put them to the side as he turned to Elizabeth.

“Elizabeth,” he placed a hand on her shoulder and nudged her gently. “Come on Sleeping Beauty, time for dinner.”

She stirred, turning her face towards him and his fingers found her cheek. He watched her as she slowly opened her eyes and smiled softly as she gazed up at him.

“Hey,” she said and his smile widened. “How long have I been asleep?”

“A few hours,” John offered, “Dinner’s here, smells good.”

She shifted, attempting to sit up and he watched as the effort pushed her back on her back to rest more. The drugs she had taken had weakened her. Carson had explained that it would take a few days before they would fully work out of her system so she could move on her own.

“Here,” he said getting to his feet and helping her to sit up. He adjusted her pillows so she could sit back comfortably and moved the table closer before he sat back down. He pulled the lid off the plate and the smell of vegetable pasta bake wafted down his nose. “I feel like I haven’t eaten for a year,” he said pulling off the lid of his own and dragging in a large breath of food.

Elizabeth gave a little laugh and he quirked a brow at her before picking up his fork and scooping up a large pile and shoving it into his mouth.

“You’re a pig,” she said watching him chewing the food.

“You should start eating before I decide to make short work of it.”

She picked up her fork and stabbed at a bean on the edge of her plate and popped it into her mouth. He glared at her a playful warning in his eyes that she’d lose her meal if she carried on like that, he wanted to point out that she hadn’t eaten for weeks and she was thin to the point of bad health at the moment.

“You won’t be able to support a baby like that,” he said and knew it was a mistake the second her fork dropped onto the plate. “Yep,” he said sitting back, “that was dumb.”

“Do you mean it?”

“About it being dumb? Yes.”

“No,” she said with a small laugh.

“About you not being strong enough to support a baby? Yes,” he grinned as she did.

“No,” she said with a bigger laugh. “About helping me,” he smile dropped, “about helping me like that.”

John put down his own fork carefully. He swallowed the last of the food in his mouth before he looked at her again.

“Do you remember that planet about seven months ago, the one with the sun a little too close for comfort?”

“The people who the medicine plant we could have used to help the worst burn victims?”

“That’s the one,” he said. “I enjoyed that trip. For the life of me, I can’t get rid of the image of you in that short skirt and tank top. It’ll probably give me a heart attack to see that again and watch Teyla put sun cream on your arms.”

“That’s not an answer to my question.”

“I’m getting there,” he said mouth dry as the thought returned. “Penton took you and Teyla to a private pool, but I wouldn’t let you go alone.”

“You and Lorne went with us, but you weren’t allowed to swim because it was a women’s pool.”

“Yeah, well, we kept out of the way and out of sight, but I saw you, in the bikini they had given you.”

Her head dropped and John watched the blush rise over her neck and cheeks. It had been a very small bikini, little black panties tied at the side and enough material covering her breasts to keep her modesty. He reached up and turned her face to look at him.

“I won’t deny checking you out, hell I checked Teyla out,” he said with an ‘I’m only male’ look. “But I couldn’t get over the natural swell of your stomach,” he said. “So beautiful.”

“You _are_ a hopeless romantic,” she said with a laugh.

“It’s apart of my charm,” he said with a cocky grin. “Nah, I’m just a man who wished he’d made a few different choices in his left and really wants children before he’s too old.”

“Hmm, well at least you don’t have a ticking clock in your head that reminds you that your body will stop giving you the chance in a few years.”

“More like fifteen years, isn’t it?”

“Probably more like ten,” she corrected. He nodded.

“At this point, I’d talk a woman into having my baby and just sharing a house with me, our own rooms and space and the only thing we share being the children.”

“I don’t want that,” she said. “I’d take it, but I’d prefer the real family experience.”

“You won’t be healthy enough if you don’t eat all of your dinner,” he said a little too serious and waited as she picked up her fork and took a mouthful.


	5. Chapter 5

Sam stepped up to the door and knocked. Beside her Cam flipped over the paper and then checked the door number. They were in the right place at least and that was a bonus, the person they were looking for wasn't at work today and she considered as she waited that he was out with friends or even visiting family. She knocked again before turning to frown at Cam.

“Benjamin Kavanagh?'' she called through the door. Silence greeted her and knocked again, louder. “Doctor Kavanagh.''

“I'll go find the super,'' Cam said and turned away. Sam watched him for a moment before trying the door handle, it was locked, naturally. She knocked again before pulling out her phone and dialling a number.

“Sir,'' she said when General Landry answered. “Do you have a phone number for Doctor Kavanagh?'' He checked the file and she wasn't completely shocked to find there was no number listed. She thanked him and hung up just as Cam came back.

The superintendent was a tall thin woman. She fiddled through a bunch of keys before picking the one to the door and unlocked it before stepping back. Sam got the impression she let a lot of police officers in to other rooms in this place as she pulled her gun from its holster and opened the door. She was bent slightly as she stepped in, but stopped and straightened when she saw the state of the room. It was empty. The only furniture left was a sofa. The curtains and lamp shades were gone and there was nothing personal in the whole room.

“Well,'' Cam said looking around over her shoulder. “That explains why we didn't get an answer.'' He turned back to the superintendent. “Didn't know he was gone?''

“No,'' she said, “he paid a month ahead last time I saw him.''

“At least this will go in Elizabeth's favour,'' Sam offered. “Can't find the man threaten her; it's probably safer if she stays on base.''

“Ain't that the truth,'' Cam said as she pulled her phone out and dialled the number again. This wasn't going to be a good report.

~~**~~

In the four weeks that followed, John recorded everything. He didn't need to, but he felt he wanted to. Every smile he got from Elizabeth was noted in a journal, every step she'd taken to better her health and even the fact that she'd written a positive letter home without any mention of what had happened.

The downsides were listed as well though. The report that Kavanagh had vanished without a trace was the one that scared him the most and he had said as much to Jack O'Neill the day he was told. He had even reminded the man of the threat Kavanagh had made on Elizabeth's mother. That night, John had sat on her bed back in her own room and explained what was happening. The only good thing he had told her was that someone had gone to see her mum and explained the situation. That she was being given an emergency number to call if something happened and that someone would stop by to check on her every other day.

When she'd been released from the infirmary she had been reclusive. The eyes of the city were on her and it pushed her into silence, it had scared him to think she would withdraw from them so easily, but he'd managed to get her out and about between his duties. He knew when he went off world the first time that he wouldn't be comfortable, but Jack and Chuck had promised to keep an eye on her and Carson had stepped into the gate room at the last moment to tell him he and Kate would be with her most of the time he was gone.

She managed to keep up with what was going on in the city, Jack kept to the situation and setup she had already placed and continued to meet with her from time to time to give her an update. She had been thankful for that fact. Never wanting to leave the city to begin with, she had confessed that it frightened her to have to catch up or practically start all over again with what she knew was happening.

Kate's two weekly meeting had become every day for a week before dropping to every other day until she was comfortable Elizabeth wouldn't now attempt what they had though of her to begin with. Still not daring to push the possibility out, Kate had insisted they continue with more regular meetings until she was back at work. Though she now promised to lower the sessions every so often.

Carson was no different. He checked on Elizabeth almost every day and had her in for a check up every third. That was all before her friends dropped by to make sure she was ok.

John was starting to wonder if she'd ever get time alone. It was that thought that led him to the jumper bay with a freshly washed blanked and bag of candles he'd managed to talk Teyla into giving him. He climbed up to the concealed opening and slipped into the room beyond it without notice. The room was still as it had been left, the open bottle of water sitting on the floor by the cushions and his book on top of the pile where he'd placed it. He turned and placed the blanket and candles in the entrance to the room and turned back to the room to pick his starting point.

He decided on the bookshelf. He cleaned it off and readjusted the shelf to lie more flat and a little higher than it had, he stacked the books in size order thinking that he could reorder them later if she preferred something like alphabetical. He created a small table in the corner using the water box and a rounded piece of wood that he found under the cushions before setting the pillows in neat little piles around the room and flattening the blanket out between them. He placed a candle on each corner of the blanket and few of the better pillows in the middle before placing the rest of the candles on the shelf or other places he could find.

Sitting in the entrance when he was finished he admired his handiwork, the room looked good and he was pleased that he'd managed to set something up so well. He considered lighting the candles before he left and then found himself looking around for somewhere for the smoke to filter out through. His heart sank, there were no vents or anything in the room and it occurred to him that he wouldn't be able to light the candles to give the added effect. Not put off by that fact, John grabbed the bag and made his way back out. He stopped in the jumper bay when he saw Lorne heading his way.

“Major,'' he said with a smile.

“Sir,'' he said a little nervously. “I heard you were making up Doctor Weir's room to be a little more comfortable.''

“I was,'' he said, “I just finished.''

“I wanted to offer this,'' he pulled a painting from behind his back and John quirked a brow.

“Wow,'' he said looking at the Atlantis landscape. “You sure you don't want to keep this?''

“It's not like I can send it home to my parents or anything, sir.''

John laughed, he had a point. He took the painting and grinned at his second in command.

“I'll find a good place for it.''

~~**~~

“Right,'' Jack said stepping into the extravagant conference room at the pentagon. “Let's make this quick, I have a space plane to catch.''

He'd stepped through the Stargate only a few hours ago and had been forced to have his lunch on the flight. They had requested Elizabeth for the meeting as well, but Jack had heard enough rumours over the last week that made him cautious about letting her step through the gate just yet. Mostly because he'd fight tooth and nail for her to keep her job, four weeks in Atlantis dealing with injured teams, science reports and bickering personnel had left Jack with a sense of just what the poor woman dealt with on a daily basis. With that in mind he had long ago concluded that she was perfect for the task.

There were days in the city when he felt like the headmaster of a school of special needs students and on other days he felt like a single parent who had more kids than he could handle. Only once or twice had he made it through the day feeling like Jack O'Neill, intergalactic explorer.

“We did request Doctor Weir's presence at these proceedings,'' one of the IOA members said. He never did care to learn names.

“I know,'' Jack said. He wasn't about to give anything more than that, he had two tasks to get through before he left and he only had about two hours to get them done.

“Very well,'' he continued. “Well keep this brief as several of us have places to be. In regards to Doctor Benjamin Kavanagh whose location is still unknown, we will keep our eyes open for any information on his whereabouts and arrest as soon as possible. In the meantime, Penelope Weir will have her emergency contact and will be visited by a member of this administration,'' he stopped and looked at the woman to his left.

“Peter Belling continues to maintain that he had no idea about what was going on and what the drugs he supplied were used for. With little or no evidence that he had anything to do with the events he cannot be tried or charged. However, he did hand out drugs to a friend without a supervisor's authorisation and he has been suspended from his job for one year.'' The black mark on his record should stop him getting a medical job anywhere on the planet for a good few years to come.

“Tony Ashley,'' another piped up as Hank entered and took a seat at the back, “has confessed to being coheres into attacking and attempting to kill Doctor Elizabeth Weir. He claims that Doctor Kavanagh threatened members of his family and friends if he didn't at least attempt to kill her. Without Benjamin Kavanagh to verify this information we cannot act on this information, but he has twice forced Doctor Weir into situations that lead to death, therefore he is being jailed for thirty years for attempted murder.''

“As for Doctor Weir,'' Jack could feel the doom setting in. “We're concerned that she can't turn to her own staff for help, though we understand that in this situation she had no way of knowing for sure who was causing the problems. The accusations regarding her and Colonel Sheppard were explained as rumours by Peter Belling, he described how having nothing to report to Doctor Kavanagh they added information heard through the city to make their letters more interesting. Therefore, the charges against her are dropped and her job status is to be reinstated.''

“For how long?'' Hank asked from the back and Jack quirked a brow.

“I'm sorry?'' the English member asked.

“For how long will Doctor Weir remain in her job? Until someone else spreads rumours about her? Until someone else has a grudge and you go back though all this investigating malarkey and put her career and life at risk?''

“I move for job immunity for Doctor Elizabeth Weir,'' Jack said seeing an opportunity. “No investigations unless severe misjudgement was taken on her behalf, including any relationships she may enter into.''

“Something we should know about?'' the Englishman asked.

“Yes,'' Jack said, “the fact that people on Atlantis are afraid of creating anything more than a professional relationship thousands of light-years away from home. These people should be able to have romantic relationships and even the right to have children should they wish to.''

“You're suggesting we throw the military regulations out the window?''

“No,'' Jack said with a frustrated sigh, “Military personnel can keep that rule, but military and civilian and even two civilians shouldn't have to follow that reg.''

“I second the motion,'' Jack turned a little too sharply to look at the youngest woman on the IOA. She couldn't be anything more than thirty and he quirked a brow as he realised she was somewhere in the region of five or six months pregnant. “If I had taken a place on Atlantis, I would expect my civil rights to be at my disposal. If we can't keep that going then we don't deserve to be sitting here making decisions on what's right and what's wrong for the people that far from home and family, and even on the front line of a hostile race.''

“That race is the exact reason we don't allow it.''

“Forgive me, but there are pregnant women world wide in less than normal situations and I'm willing to bet that should there be an attack on Atlantis, Doctor Weir would insist any pregnant women be evacuated immediately.''

“Unless that person was herself.''

“Within which case Colonel Sheppard, Major Lorne, Doctors Beckett, McKay and Zelenka as well as Teyla, Ronon and probably a dozen or so others would insist she be evacuated,'' Jack said. “Hell, make it a rule that any pregnant personnel should be on the first evacuation team regardless to rank.''

Silence fell as the information was mulled over by each person in the room. He wouldn't find it acceptable if they said no to this, he wanted Elizabeth to be able to live her life while working in Atlantis, otherwise this was just plane unfair. Glances were exchanged along with small nods of agreement.

“Very well. Elizabeth Weir's professional life will only come into question if we believe serious misjudgement is at play. Any other professional and personal queries will be handled in Atlantis with Doctor Weir.''

Victory was his, one down, one to go.

“Doctor Weir will be medically and mentally tested by Doctors Beckett and Heightmeyer who will report to us directly. From this report we will determine a safe time for her to return to work. In the meantime, General, you will continue in your role as head of the Atlantis expedition while Doctor Weir is free to come and go from the city as she sees fit. If there is no more business...''

“I have a request on Elizabeth's behalf, though she doesn't know about this.''

“Go ahead.''

“Her mother has been diagnosed with Chronic lymphocytic leukaemia. I request security clearance for her to at the very least know what her daughter has been doing for the last few years, if not to be able to visit the city and see for herself.''

“We will take that under advisement, General. Thanks you.''

Jack pressed his lips together; it was almost as if they had expected that particular request. He wasn't about to knock it, they hadn't turned him down flat. He watched as they stepped out then nodded to Hank before heading out of the room.

~~**~~

“John,'' Elizabeth had was clasped in his and he could literally feel her nerves as he led her blindfold through the tunnel. “I know where we are, you know.''

“I know,'' he said. There was absolutely no way he could have got her to crawl through that tunnel without her knowing. “That's not the point,'' he stepped out and helped her to her feet before coaxing her to sit down at the entrance.

“There's a point to this?'' she asked with a sly tone. He turned and glared at her even though she couldn't see him. She was sat perfectly still and straight backed, still unnaturally thin though she was, her health was improving and Carson, still not willing to say yes on her having a child yet, had said she wasn't far off the mark. He had no intention of disobeying the doctor this time, not for her health. But he did have very naughty ideas for this room and her body, his own, however, would have to suffer.

“Yes,'' he said making sure he sounded just a little hurt. “There's been a point to everything I've done for you since the day we met.''

“Including all the times you worked against me?''

“Let's not go there,'' he said. He didn't have a point to those most of the time. They were just points where he thought he was right when chances are they both were. Instead he reached behind her head and undid the lose blindfold and stepped to the side so she could look around.

“Wow,'' she said and John could pick the point she spotted the painting. She was up fast and moved to study it. “Who did this?''

“Evan Lorne,'' John said and turned to quirk a brow at him. “He's given it to you because he can't send it home.''

She turned and quirked a brow at him before turning to look around the room, he watched as she took in her higher book shelf and the candles dotted around. She picked at the finger foods resting on his makeshift table studied the layout of his blanket and the pillows.

“You didn't light the candles for me?'' she gave him a slight pout.

“There's nowhere for the smoke to go.'' Her eyes shifted and he could see that she'd never thought of that. 

“I've lit candles in here before,'' she said with a little hmm at the end.

“Okay then,'' John said and pulled out a lighter. He moved around methodically lighting each one before he moved to the control for the light. Unlike most of the controls in the city, this one had lighting levels. He dimmed the lights and turned back to find Elizabeth had moved to sit in the middle of the blanket.

“I'm beginning to see the point,'' she said. She sounded calm, though a slight waver in her tone caught his attention. She was nervous, so was he, they were about to cross a line they had only ever stepped up to with flirting. Friendship and professionalism where about to go flying out the window, or tunnel, though both of them knew back in the offices and in front of others they would have no choice but to keep their usual face and not let this moment interfere with how the city was run.

“If you're not ready,'' he said in a low tone as he joined her on the blanket, sitting to her left and just slightly behind her. He rested a hand on the blanket behind her and leaned in close as she turned to face him. “We can stop now,'' he said darting his eyes down to her lips and back to her eyes. “Or you can stop me at any time.''

The light of the candles seemed to flicker in her eyes as though he could see a fire in her soul, it was intriguing and he could have stayed lost in that sight for hours. Except that Elizabeth made the first move. With a slight shudder he felt against his shoulder she leaned in and kissed him. He let it linger, allowing her to control the intensity and get comfortable with the acceptance of what he was planning and, as he realised for the first time, the acceptance of him as the father to her children.

“John,'' she said pulling away slowly, “are you sure?''

He couldn't answer. The sudden realisation that what he wanted was finally going into reality flashed dangerously across his mind. His body reacted to though as much as it had every time he'd started to imagine what Elizabeth Weir looked like naked. Words escaped him and feeling that hesitating too long would only make her sure he was lying started to panic him slightly. He shifted quickly, pulling her close and kissed her with all the passion he could find. Elizabeth's moan shot through him and he started to reconsider waiting for Carson's go ahead to start trying for a baby.

Instinctively; and perhaps a little more hurried than he had initially planned, John slid his hands up under her shirt. Her breath caught and as she drew back from the kiss he dropped his head to nuzzle at her neck. Elizabeth's shoulder pressed against his chest and he could feel her hand resting on his hip. The hand he'd been using to rest on the blanket came up to her back as he ran his fingers across the top of her stomach. The soft cotton of her bra brushed against his thumb enticing him.

Moving again, John pulled Elizabeth onto her knees and got comfortable on his. He placed one knee between her legs shifting his lips around the side of her neck. Hands now on her sides, John gathered up her pale green shirt and began to lift it up. He paused in both the action and kissing when she didn't move to help. She gave a short laugh before raising her arms so he could remove the top.

“Does this feel weird for you, too?'' John asked. “Friends for too long and now we're moving on.''

“A little,'' she breathed as his hands drifted around to her stomach, “but I want this. I want it with you. I trust you.''

“It's not my intention to start trying today,'' he breathed his hands moving up slowly towards her breasts. “My god, Elizabeth, you're testing my resolve and you're barely showing any skin.''

She chuckled, resting her head back against his shoulder as he drifted his fingers lightly over her ribs. He could feel them against her skin, pressing against them, though not so much as to be seen too clearly. Her skin was soft under his rough hands and the tone light. She was no Teyla, but then again John preferred the pale skin for reasons completely unknown to him. Right now, he wasn't looking at the flesh over her stomach where his child would eventually grow; he was focused on the curve of her breasts, supported by a simple white bra with floral motif along the top of the cups.

His hands reached them; cupping lightly to give her the chance to change her mind before he drew his palms up over them and felt her nipples brush through his palms. Elizabeth moaned and John had to swallow the excess saliva as thoughts of sucking on the puckers flooded his brain. He returned his hands to them and pinched at the buds through the material. It was a moment before he realised Elizabeth had shifted, it was a slight shock when the fabric loosened and he watched the straps slide from her shoulders. He pulled his hands away, taking the clothing with him and licked his lips as he set eyes on her firm breasts and pink nipples.

“Good God Elizabeth,'' he breathed.

“Re thinking that time to start trying?'' she asked with a coy smile as he flicked a thumb over her left nipple.

“Yeah, the times been reduced to about half an hour from now.''

Elizabeth twisted a little to look at him, her brow quirked and a smile on her lips.

“Half an hour?''

“I'm determined to see my plan through.''

“Oh?'' she questioned. “What's the plan?''

John didn't answer. His hands made their way down her stomach, fingers feeling the muscles flickers as he moved. Elizabeth didn't look away, her eyes fixed on the side of his face as he popped the button of her jeans and worked his hand inside and under her panties. Her breath caught as he brushed through her short hairs and felt the slick skin of her pussy. Her tight pants were restrictive though and he had to pull back to let the blood return to his digits.

Elizabeth moved to her feet, still keeping her back to John she kicked off her shoes and let her pants slide down her hips and thighs teasingly keeping hold of them. When they reached her knees and she had to lean forward slightly, not that John minded, she let the fall to the floor and waited for a moment before returning to her place on her knees.

John swallowed hard, the lump in his throat now feeling a little too restricting and adding to the pain that his harsh breathing was starting to cause. Why hadn't he done this years ago? Why hadn't he looked at Elizabeth as a beautiful woman before now? Sure, he had looked. He'd even fantasised. But this was beyond any of that and he could kick himself for not realising he'd actually fallen in love with her.

He studied the skin on her shoulder, a few freckles littering her skin. His hands explored her hips, the bone shifting as she adjusted her position. This was nothing like he imagined.

He moved his hand once more down to her sex, slipping below the only remaining article of clothing she had on and this time he managed to dip all the way inside. Elizabeth groaned, he head back on his shoulder as he pressed a finger through her folds. She was already wet, either she had anticipated the outcome of this trip or he was much better with women than even he thought.

He watched the reaction of her body as he teased her clit, the flow of her hips as she swayed with his slow movements. Her hand came up to wrap around his neck and he used it as an excuse to place an open mouthed kiss on her shoulder. Her other hand took a tight hold on his wrist and he let her guide him to the most sensitive places as he worked her quickly to her release.

“No,'' she breathed suddenly pushing him away.

John swallowed, closed his eyes and took his hands away from her. His worst nightmare was slapping him in the face. She was changing her mind about what they were doing. He felt her move away and waited for the sound of clothing being put back on. But it never came. His brow quirked and second later he felt her close, her lips brushing his and her hands resting on his hips for support.

John kept his eyes closed as he pulled away from the kiss and quickly opened them when her hands slid up under his t-shirt. His throat dry, John licked his lips and she lifted the shirt up and over his head.

“Elizabeth,'' he breathed, “Carson said...''

“My body not his,'' she said placing kisses down his chest.

“Thank god for that,'' he joked, earning a smile as her hands dropped to his pants and started to undo his belt.

With his belt undone, Elizabeth made short work of his button and zipper. When she started to tug at his pants a vain attempt to pull them down his hip, he stopped her. His eyes now watching her delicate features and taking in the smooth skin of her body, he eased her back down on the blanket and stretched out over her in order to kiss her gently. John trailed small kisses down her chest and stomach until he encountered her panties and slowly eased them off before standing up and removing the rest of his clothes. Lying back down over her, John positioned himself at her entrance before starting to kiss along her shoulders.

“John,'' she breathed her tone a cross between need and questioning.

“This isn't just for a baby,'' he said meeting her eye. “I've wanted this with you for so long.''

Elizabeth's hand came up to run along the side of his face.

“You have it. Take it.''

He pushed in, her warmth engulfing him. He couldn't look away, watching every flicker of emotion that crossed Elizabeth's face. The pleasure, the longing. The need. She was beautiful and enticing and there was no way he could step back now, he was in too deep - in more ways than one. He was going to be a father at last.

He began to move, thrusting in long, slow motions and drawing small moans from Elizabeth's threat. Her pitch growing higher the faster he moved until she reached up with both hands and took hold of his neck, her nails digging into the skin on the back as she peaked. He felt the wet pleasure and tightening muscles for a moment before he dropped down and sucked on her neck as he came inside her.


	6. Chapter 6

“Are you going to tell me what’s in that folder?” Elizabeth asked. She had followed him out here with very little idea of where they were going or even why. They had been back on Earth for three days, their first of which was spent in an update meeting with the IOA. Jack had seemed to work a miracle, she remembered coming out of the meeting and wondering if she was on the right planet or if the zombies had taken over while they were on Atlantis.

The short meeting in the afternoon had just been for John and he hadn’t told her yet what was said in it. They spent yesterday wondering the quiet village between the mounting and Colorado Springs. It had been nice to wonder the streets back home for a while. Then, this morning John had bundled her into a car to which the driver had the address and she’s spent the trip guessing where they were going. It wasn’t until they turned into her home town that she’d realised she was visiting her mother. So she’d changed to asking about the official folder he had been carrying with him and keeping out of her reach.

“Not yet,” he said helping her from the back of the car. “You’ll find out soon enough.”

“You are not fun when you have secrets.”

“Tell me that tonight,” he said with a waggle of his eyebrows.

“I will if you don’t tell me what was said in your meeting. I know it was about me.”

“Half of it was,” he said following her up the path to the front door. “The other half was the reason for the folder,” he waved the folder at her as she turned at the top of the stairs. Narrowing her eyes at him she reached out and tried to snatch it away from him, behind her the door opened and before John could move the file out of her reach his eyes darted to the woman in the door way and Elizabeth managed to take the folder from him.

“Elizabeth!” Elizabeth turned sharply, the folder in her hand forgotten as she grinned at her mother.

“Hi mom,” she said moments before she was engulfed in a hug and hustled into the house. She checked over her shoulder to make sure John followed as he mother started rambling on about her showing and vanished into the kitchen offering coffee. “Let’s see if I can remember this. Black, one...”

“I can’t drink coffee,” Elizabeth cut in. “I haven’t been able to drink coffee for the last two weeks.”

“Why? What happened in the last two weeks?”

“Actually it happened a month ago today,” she said watching as her mom’s eyes flicked to John still standing in the doorway to the kitchen. “I’m pregnant.”

Silence followed, she could see the information working over in her mother’s head, the timing the reason John was there – though so far she hadn’t asked who he was or anything about him.

“Pregnant,” she breathed, tears filling her eyes and Elizabeth smiled as the woman rounded the centre counter and hugged her again.

“Mom, this is John Sheppard.”

“Hi,” John said stepping forward with an outstretched hand. Her mother eyed him suspiciously before accepting the hand shake. “Nice to meet you, again,” he said. Elizabeth’s eyes snapped to him.

“Again?” she asked. “When did you meet before?”

“Before our trip,” he said with his cheeky boy smirk in place. “While I was deciding if it was worth accepting your offer, I figured if I wanted to go, I wanted to know who I was working for, so I talked to some people and eventually found Penny,” her brow quirked at the familiarity, “and I spent a day here talking to her.”

“When I said look after her,” Elizabeth’s mother said, “I didn’t mean like this.”

“I’m still looking after her,” John said defensively. “There’s just gonna be more of her to look after soon.”

“Careful,” Elizabeth said giving him a dangerous look about her soon to be size. “I can still punish you. In fact,” she said with a smile, “now I have more way of punishing you.”

She held his gaze, daring him to make a comment but he didn’t. Instead he took a step towards her and paused.

“I’ll make drinks,” he said with a smile. He took another step levelling out with her before snatching the file from her hand and moving quickly into the kitchen.

~~**~~

“So?” Elizabeth said with a quirked brow at John. Her mother sat to the left with a similarly raised brow.

“So... What?”

“Are you ever going to tell me what’s in the folder?”

“No,” John said trying hard not to smirk. He loved this game they had gotten into, teasing the other out of a secret. “I’ll tell Penny though,” he said and turned to Elizabeth’s mother with the folder in hand. He opened it and slid it across the table towards her. “These are non-disclosure forms pertaining specifically to the work done one Doctor Elizabeth Weir and any member of her expedition. Including me. It forbids the disclosure of personnel names, work done and above all, the location of the project.”

He turned back to look at Elizabeth. The shock on her face was classic and had the situation not been something so delicate he probably would have laughed. The problem was, through all the mentions of Elizabeth not being able to tell her mother where she was, no one asked if she wanted to give the elder woman that information. After all, knowing that your daughter was on the front line 27/7 wasn’t going to be easy. Knowing that she was pregnant at the same time could be seer murder.

“Excuse me, mom,” Elizabeth said looking at her mother and taking the forms from her before giving John a look that meant to follow or else.

He got up and followed her from the kitchen, down a corridor and into a bedroom. He looked around the room, the blue lilies painted on the cream walls were delicate and a small statuette sitting on the dressing table told John this was Elizabeth’s room. She dropped the file on her bed and turned to face him and waited. John didn’t move or speak for a moment; then he stepped forward and kissed her letting his hands drop to her hips.

“They wanted to make it clear that if our professionalism was a problem due to our relationship that they would remove one of us. They also wanted to make it clear that should there be a dependant at that time that you would be the one removed from Atlantis – along with the child.”

“You should have warned me.”

“I wanted it to be a surprise, Elizabeth. I wanted to give you the chance to tell your own mother were you where all this time, instead of having some Air Force hack do it or worse, Woosley.”

“Did you arrange this?”

“I’d love to be able to say yes to that, but this is General O’Neill’s doing. Though, he did ask me if it was wise first. I told him I didn’t know, but having the option to tell her so she didn’t die thinking her daughter was in the middle of no...”

Elizabeth stopped him with a finger to the lips and tears in her eyes. She swallowed hard, her eyes darting between his left and right before she kissed him and pulled him in for a hug.

“If you don’t want her to know then I’ll wait here while you talk to her,” he offered. “But think of it this way,” he licked his lips. “We could work on getting her to visit when the baby’s due.”

Her fingers tightened in his shirt on his back and she left out a small sob.

“Damn you, John Sheppard,” she breathed against his chest. “Sometimes you can be an annoying bastard and others you can do something so wonderful I could kiss you forever.”

“My ex-wife always focused on the bastard part.”

“Then she was an idiot,” Elizabeth said pulling away from him. “Then again, I’m one and a half months pregnant and extremely prone to mood swings so I could be on the wrong side of the fence right now.”

John laughed. 

“Still beautiful,” he said with a grin and watched the fresh wave of emotion rush across her face.

“Stop it,” she said letting out a sob before pressing her face back against his chest. “Or I’ll make you sleep on the couch.”

“Yeah, I believe that like I believe McKay is the tooth fairy. You wouldn’t last the night, you’d be seeking out my warmth by one in the morning.”

“You want to test that?”

“Not really,” he said earning a laugh. “So are we telling mom or standing in here teasing each other?”

Elizabeth turned, picked up the file and moved around him to open the door when he stopped her. Placing one hand on her back, he slid the other onto her stomach and smiled at her.

“We’re gonna be parents,” he said with a grin. Her reaction was predictable and exactly what he wanted. The emotional wash over her face, the fight off of tears and the slap to his arm before she responded. 

“Bastard.”

He chuckled as he followed her back to the kitchen. Stepping back into the room he saw Penny sitting in the same place at the table, fresh tea and coffee on the table along with a plate of cookies and a pen in her hand, which she was idly fiddling with.

“So,” Penny said, “do I get to sign them so you can tell me?”

John saw Elizabeth hesitate and placed a supportive hand on the small of her back. She swallowed again before moving to the table and handing the file over to her mom. She took her seat and John paused for just a moment as Penny opened the file before he moved his chair around closer to Elizabeth and paused.

“Hang on,” he said. “Don’t sign without me,” he turned and walked quickly from the room. He crossed to the door and opened it before jogging down the stairs and to the car. He popped the trunk and pulled their bags out and headed back to the house. Dropping Elizabeth’s bag beside the door, he propped his up on the side table and dug around for a packet he’d hidden well from Elizabeth since leaving Atlantis, zipped his back and dropped it beside Elizabeth’s before heading back to the kitchen. “Okay,” he said dropping into his seat with the small packet.

“Another secret, John?” Elizabeth said with a playful tone. “We’re gonna have to talk about this.”

“Sure, I bet Heightmeyer would love to know about all the presents I have hidden in your room right now,” the look he earned for the suggestion was priceless. She’d be wondering for the rest of the trip if there were presents for her in her room on Atlantis and if so, what they were.

“That couch is beckoning, John,” she threatened and smiled at Penny.

“Can I sign now?” Penny asked, “I had a quick read through.”

John just nodded. She took a deep breath and as her pen touched the paper, John pushed the packet towards her.

“This will help you understand why Elizabeth doesn’t visit much. Don’t open it just yet.”

“So where have you been?” Penny asked and Elizabeth took a very deep breath.

“Exploring an advanced city, one that is believed to be mythical in nature.”

“You’re telling me a mythical city is real?”

“Yes,” Elizabeth said.

“Which one?”

“Atlantis.”

“Where on Earth would they hide a city like Atlantis?”

Elizabeth turned to him. This was the hard part, convincing her that Atlantis wasn’t on Earth would be hard, but telling her it was in another galaxy in walking distance, almost literally, was something new altogether. 

“It’s not on Earth,” John said. “Atlantis was found at the bottom on the ocean on a planet in the Pegasus Galaxy.”

“Pegasus is...”

“Three million light years away,” Elizabeth said.

“That’s impossible. You’d be dead before you got out of this system.”

John nudged the packet he had brought in. Penny pulled the paper apart and looked at the stack of photos in the clear box inside. The top picture was of Atlantis taken by Ford as they approached it in a jumper. Slowly Penny opened the box and took the picture out, her fingers trembling as she held it and ran a finger over the image. John watched as she set it aside and looked down at the next one, taken this time by Radek Zelenka from the end of one of the piers.

“How?” Was all Penny managed to ask.

“There’s a device,” Elizabeth started and John reached for the clear box and shifted through the content for a specific picture. “It’s called a Stargate. It creates a wormhole between ours and other planets that have gates on them. It takes a lot of power to dial Atlantis, but it is possible.”

John handed over a few pictures of the Stargate in the Atlantis gate room.

“Along with that,” he said handing over a picture of the Daedalus, “we have a ship that can travel pretty damn fast,” he didn’t want to blind her with science right now, “that takes three weeks to reach us.”

Penny pulled the box of pictures back to her side of the table and picked up the next one to examine it. The control, staffed and taken from the gate room below. She set it aside and looked down at the picture of Elizabeth in her office smiling at Teyla as the Athosian crossed the bridge to speak with her.

“She doesn’t dress like everyone else,” Penny said eyeing Teyla.

“That’s Teyla,” Elizabeth said, “we met her our first day there, her people lived on a planet called Athos.”

“Lived?” Penny set the picture of Teyla aside and smiled at the one of Elizabeth, frowning as she concentrated on her work.

“They live on the mainland on Atlantica now. Who took that picture?”

“It says on the back,” John said with a smile and watched as Penny turned the photo over.

“Chuck Campbell,” she read.

John grinned. He’d snuck the camera around the city for a week gathering photos he could get printed in one of the labs at the SGC. Each person had logged how many pictures they had taken and their photo numbers on the memory card before handing it off to the next person.

“How many people are on Atlantis?” Penny asked after studying several more pictures, one of which was the infirmary at lunch time.

“Currently we have 63 scientists, 28 medical and 31 military personnel from 30 countries.”

“And not one of them knows how to look after a pregnant woman,” John said sarcastically. Penny flicked to a picture of Carson and smiled at the image of him shouting at Rodney.

The next picture was on the mainland. Penny studied the people and their living arrangements, she placed the picture in the middle of the table before asking her question.

“These are... Teyla’s people?” she asked.

“All except the big guy twirling a gun.”

“This is an alien village?” she said her voice giving away her shock.

“No, they are human, just relocated thousands of years ago.”

“But they live out of shanty houses and farm the land,” she indicated the picture unnecessarily.

“Survival tends to put a dampener on progress,” Elizabeth said with a small flinch.

“Survival from what?” If John had predicted that question, so had Elizabeth.

“Please tell me there isn’t a picture of them in there,” Elizabeth asked turning to him. He grimaced.

“It’s at the bottom.”

Penny turned the box upside into her hand turned over the last picture. The old picture of Steven the Wraith grinned back at her. His face once again showing his pleasure despite his situation.

“They’re called the Wraith,” Elizabeth said. “They live in space and cull planets for food.”

“I don’t understand,” Penny said not taking her eyes off the Wraith.

“They,” Elizabeth paused. “They feed off humans; suck the life out of you through a node in their hand.”

"Oh,'' was all Penny managed. John couldn't blame her. He puffed out a breath. “And you run this… city?” she asked Elizabeth.

“Yes,” Elizabeth said with a nod.

“And that would make you…”

“One of her minions,” John said with a grin.

“The head of military personnel,” Elizabeth corrected giving him a ‘shut up’ glare.

Silence fell as Penny flicked through the pictures. She studied each one carefully taking in the details of the city and the rooms and people in each photo. Elizabeth finished her drink before she finally gave in against the silence.

“Mom?” she said and drew the attention of the older woman. “Are you okay?” 

“It’s a lot to take in,” Penny said and puffed out a breath. “You live in an advanced city that was created thousands of years ago on a planet in another galaxy.”

John found that a little mind boggling and he was one of the lucky ones who lived in Atlantis. He remembered how it felt to learn that a few years ago, to find out that there were people on other planets and a secret base were you can travel through some strange device and find yourself on another planet – or in his case, in another galaxy. The conspiracy nuts heads would explode if they found out about this.

“You’re going to have your baby here,” Penny said after a pause and John caught Elizabeth’s movements as her head dropped and she bit at her lower lip. “Is it even going to be recognised as… I don’t even know how to put it.”

“It’ll be registered her,” John said helpfully. “In Colorado as that’s officially where we are. It’ll just know Atlantis as home, I hope.”

They sat in the kitchen through lunch, which Elizabeth made for them, before moving into the sitting room. John gave more detail on the rooms and items in each of the photos and answered any questions until Elizabeth declared it time for dinner. They went to a local restaurant, to which Penny insisted paying for, John protested but was overruled by the grandmother to be.

John stepped into Elizabeth bedroom later that night to find Elizabeth sitting cross-legged in the middle of the bed with a hand on her stomach.

“You alright?” he asked and she raised her head to look at him and nodded.

“Have you ever felt torn between two places?” She asked. John dropped his toiletries bag on the dressing table and sat on the bed to study her.

“What’s wrong?”

“Is it safer here than in Atlantis?” She dropped her head again to look at the hand still on her flat stomach. “I want to be there, I want to carry on with my job, but…”

“Elizabeth,” John said shifting to sit close beside her and resting his hand over hers. “Atlantis was designed to protect its inhabitants.”

“At full power,” she pointed out and leaned against him.

“Well in my calculations I have just over seven months to find three fully powered ZPM’s.” He could see Elizabeth’s smile despite her lowered head. “Elizabeth, please. I don’t like to see you hurt so much. I will never let anything happen to you, either of you.” He pressed her back until she was lying on the bed and ran his fingers down her cheek, he’d watched her cry herself to sleep every night for the last month and it was starting to really tug at his heart. More so that he was getting used to seeing it than anything else. “Let me worry about your safety, you worry about the expedition and keeping healthy,” he said with a soft smile. “And moving over so I can get into the bed.”

Elizabeth chuckled before shifting to the side and tucking her feet under the covers as John got comfy. She was home right now and more than anything John hoped that here she could relax and let her fears vanish for just one night so she could sleep properly. He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close and with a sigh he was asleep before he could consider that she was still upset.

~~**~~

“What do you have McKay?” Sam asked and Rodney quirked a brow at her tone of voice. She sounded annoyed, like he’d just woken her in the middle of the night. In fact he was the one up in the middle of the night. “Sorry, searching for Kavanagh seems to be a full day project. I can’t remember when I slept last, I think it was sometime in the last three days, but I’m not completely sure.”

“I know how to find Kavanagh.”

“Okay,” she said rubbing at her eyes.

“Credit checks,” he said. “Follow his finances, find out what he’s got, credit cards, loans, mortgages, anything you can find. He’s an idiot he’s bound to have left a trail to his oversized head.”

“That’s actually a really good idea.”

“Of cause it’s a good idea, I thought of it.”

“Yeah, that’s what I meant,” Sam said sarcastically. “I’ll let you know what I have when John and Elizabeth dial their return trip. Carter out.”


	7. Chapter 7

With their holiday back home over John and Elizabeth returned to an Atlantis in almost complete disarray. Rodney, having been left in charge had done no reports and had spent all of his time concentrating on doing what he wanted and not giving anyone else much time of day. Elizabeth was swarmed with complaints about the chief scientist and there was more in her email inbox. Along with that, there was the few months prior to her trip to catch up with while she had been in the infirmary.

It felt as though it took years to get back on track, drifting between what had happened when she last used her office and what was meant to be happening in the next hour or even day. Rodney didn’t help at all; he practically locked himself in his office or one of the labs and refused to pitch in with what he had failed to do. John attempted to help, either by dealing with absolutely everything medical that should have gone through her or by badgering Rodney every hour to try and get him to cave.

After a few weeks she was ready for another holiday though operations had returned to normal. Or whatever passed for normal in Atlantis. Teams were back to their off world visits and John’s team had taken it upon themselves to organise those, complete the pre and post mission meetings and gather the resulting reports. It was a slightly welcomed break from having to do such things, but still she found herself drawn to the gate room when they were ready to leave and to see how they returned.

She kept her professional manner and face on in the public areas, refusing as much as John did to let their relationship get in the way of how things in the city were run. They had talked about that on their second night at her mothers house, discussed how they would run things and how much contact was acceptable when in her office or the control room as well as in other public areas such as the mess hall. Despite the fact that they had said the mess was one of the acceptable relationship places, they had also agreed that it was still minimal contact. Sitting close for meals and behaving as a couple instead of two leaders was pretty much all they had allowed themselves.

Back in their rooms, or room as John started to organise, they would change rolls, anything and everything relationship was allowed and everything work related wasn’t. Elizabeth had expressed her worries that work would infest their private time and break them apart so they had wisely set down some guidelines about what could and couldn’t be talked about in their own space. Then she had added that outside their own space the opposite applied.

In regards to the baby however, things would be somewhat, if not very different. For a start, John had pointed out that he wanted to feel when the baby moved and kicked as much as possible. Elizabeth had agreed, but only if neither of them were in the middle of something at the time and providing there were no IOA or SGC members in the city. And neither of them was stupid enough to assume nothing would change when the baby was born.

On their way back to Atlantis, while still in communication range of Earth, the IOA had sent them a polices and procedures file detailing what would, should and could happen in certain situations. Elizabeth for example had been given no less than four months maternity leave and no more than six months, her return to work was once again pending medical review.

By the time they reached three months after their return, Elizabeth had began to show, her stomach expanded to display her growing child and she’d taken to pinching John’s pants in the day time to keep comfortable and wearing Athosian skirts in the evening. At least until the Daedalus arrived with several months worth of maternity clothes she could wear and supplies for the baby – hopefully enough to last the first three months. How she would manage with a baby and the city to run she didn’t even want to contemplate this early on, but the problems usually surfaced as and when they pleased.

On one of their regular check-ins with the SGC, Sam left a message for Rodney that she had reluctantly given to Elizabeth. ‘No sign of activity on Benjamin Kavanagh’s finances.’ That night she had sat wide awake mulling the information over in her brain. No sign of activity on his accounts and therefore no sign of him. Benjamin Kavanagh was still out there somewhere with a grudge against her that she didn’t deserve. He had failed to get her out of Atlantis by sending reports about her home whenever possible in their first year and failed not only to destroy her reputation on Earth but kill her recently, he had also managed to get her permission to have a relationship and family with John Sheppard, something he had for years attempted to use against her.

When John had found her sitting up in bed wide awake at three am he had quickly put a finger on the problem and talked her to sleep. That night she had slept fine, but since then and even now she found herself troubled by the thought that he was still contemplating her downfall. She was just waiting for the next hammer to fall.

Her child showing through her uniform, her boyfriend being his usual self everywhere except their room and life generally being normal with a slight amount of better to the day she should have been able to relax into a normal routine. But at night time she spent hours awake and when she finally managed to fall asleep with John soothing her, she would have nightmares about Kavanagh killing her child. It was always the same outcome, but never the same way. And on daunting occasion it would be John or her mother in place of Kavanagh.

She never told John what happened in her dreams, never confessed that she was frightened of the man and what he could feasibly do. She did tell Kate Heightmeyer shortly after they started. But a few weeks later, tired of Kate asking if anything had changed and sick of hearing her agree that having him loose, even three billion light years away, was frightening, she had lied and said they had stopped. It made her sick, not just at night time after the nightmares when John would follow her to the bathroom, but during the day at random when someone or something would remind her that he was still free she would have to run for the nearest bathroom to throw up.

Teyla had followed her on one occasion and almost called John or Carson. But Elizabeth had placed a carefully faked smile on her face and assured her she was fine.

Elizabeth didn’t feel fine and she knew John and Teyla were watching her every move. She forced herself to eat at each meal and felt nauseous for hours after, she was tired and found it hard to sleep at night with her fears ringing in her head and building intensity. She wanted to lock herself in a cupboard and cry and early one morning she had done just that, on her route between bedroom and control room.

Her body was starting to ache from the sheer horror and lack of sleep and the sickness was coming more often than she was comfortable with. Yet every day she told herself she would see Carson the next day. It wasn’t until she had to stop on her morning route that she knew she’d left it too late. Perhaps a little too late to reverse and panic quickly set in.

She had walked the same route everyday for years, it would be a shock when John found them a suitable room in a good location, but today she had trouble completing it. Her back started to pang half way to her office and a wave of nausea swept from head to toe so fast it made her dizzy. She placed a hand on the wall and other on her stomach as it turned over inside her. Elizabeth closed her eyes and willed the moment passed quickly, but it didn’t fade as it always had and before she realised what she was doing she sank to her knees in the corridor and let the tears fall.

Her vision was too blurred from crying and lack of sleep to see who crouched beside her and her brain fogged from exhaustion to recognise the voice as that someone called for medical attention. She didn’t care who saw her, didn’t care who knew she was suffering, she wanted help, she needed to know if she was doing something to damage her baby and why she hadn’t used that to convince herself to seek help earlier. She wanted to know why she couldn’t cope even if the IOA had promised nothing would remove her short of showing too much affection to John in public.

She leaned towards her helper still unaware and unable to figure out who he was and felt his strong arms wrap cautiously around her. Not John and too large to be Teyla. The tentative arm across her back tightened as she relaxed a little more and she felt one on her hip, arm across her stomach and she grip it tight to steady herself as they waited.

Vaguely aware of footsteps moving quickly towards them she let every muscle in her body loosen in this strangers comfort and was sharply aware of John’s voice as a rush of air signalled him joining them on the floor.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered as he pulled her close and her previous leaning post got up.

“No apologies yet,” John said pulling her close, his arms around her holding tight. “I’ve been filling Carson in with what’s been going on for days. A few of us have been slipping vitamin boosters into your water whenever possible.”

Any other situation she would have been annoyed at him, angry that he had told someone else, even if it was Carson. But she couldn’t. If he hadn’t, she would have been worse off right now, would have been suffering more and probably would have lost her baby days after this started. That and she loved him too much made it hard to be angry with him for more than a few minutes at a time.

“We’re definitely calling this kid Sheppard,” he said and her brow creased at the sudden mention of the child. “One stubborn Weir is enough to keep an eye on at a time.

“You think it’s gonna be less stubborn and more wild if you name it Sheppard?” Someone asked and Elizabeth finally identified Ronon’s low husk.

“I think I have a chance,” John said as more footsteps approached.

“Either way you’ll have your hands full,” Ronon said as Carson arrived and interrupted the conversation with questions and attempted to pry her hand off her stomach.

~~**~~

Teyla reached out and tucked the strand of hair behind Elizabeth’s ear as she watched the woman’s eyes flicker behind her closed eyelids. She had been here in John’s place for an hour while he had been sitting in a meeting with Carson; the length of the meeting was starting to worry her. Could the baby be in that much danger or were there too many options for him to consider.

She had been heading for breakfast when the medical emergency was called and its location had taken her by surprise, only one person could fall ill in a corridor, the same person she’d followed more than once to a bathroom. Knowing Carson would respond quickly and people would gather in the corridor to check on Elizabeth, Teyla had instead headed straight for the infirmary intending to meet them when they arrived. It had only been a few minutes before the gurney was drawn quickly into the room and orders for medication were given.

She knew it wasn’t over, weeks ago when she’d followed Elizabeth into a bathroom and comforted her as she’d cried her fear and pain, she had come down to the infirmary to ask Carson if there was something they could do. He had already been doing it, boosting Elizabeth’s immune system and energy as best he could from a distance until she caved and made her way to medical for help. She knew the doctor was prepared for the possibility that she wouldn’t come on her own accord, she also knew he would have taken something with him to calm her down should the worst happen.

Her musings where cut short as a hand wrapped around her wrist and she let the weight of the weakened arm pull her hand down to Elizabeth’s chest. She smiled soothing down at Elizabeth as her friend looked back up at her.

“My baby?” she asked and Teyla’s smile grew. She didn’t answer, instead moving Elizabeth’s hand down to her still growing belly.

“You are lucky so many people care for you,” Teyla said and watched Elizabeth’s eyes close and a tear fall from the side of her eye. “Elizabeth,” she breathed bringing her hand up to brush the tear away, “why didn’t tell someone of your dreams?”

“I shouldn’t be afraid of a man who can’t reach me.”

“He already has Elizabeth, and not admitting that he still scares you is only helping him win. You must fight him by keeping your health and family.”

“How do you admit that you are afraid of the man you love as well?”

Teyla’s brow creased. It took a moment for her to realise what Elizabeth had said. She was scared of John, but that was confusing, he had shown her nothing more than love for long before this started.

“Can I trust him never to hurt me?” Elizabeth asked.

“He loves you, Elizabeth,” she said stroking her hand over Elizabeth’s cheek. “He would never do anything to hurt you. And if he did, Ronon or I would hurt him in return.”

“In my dreams,” she said, stopping to lick her lips. Teyla’s eyes flicked for a daring moment over to John and Carson standing on the other side. She should stop Elizabeth from continuing, but the need to hear what she wanted to say, won, “it’s not always Kavanagh that kills my baby, on rare occasions it’s Carson,” Elizabeth choked back a sob. “And more often, it’s John.”

Teyla saw John move closer to the bed and before he could touch Elizabeth, she leaned down and placed a gentle kiss on her friend’s cheek.

“Trust me, Elizabeth, I would not let him hurt you or the baby and I am sorry,” she paused, her lips still closer to her ear as she swallowed. “John and Carson both heard that.”

She pulled up and moved away as Elizabeth turned and looked up. She knew the look in John’s eyes would be hurt and she knew Elizabeth’s pain was much greater, she had tried to be strong for John, tried desperately not to let him see her crumble again. It stung to watch her friend suffer so much and would have given anything right now to know her way around Earth and been able to go and find Kavanagh herself.

A pained sob told her Elizabeth couldn’t hold out anymore and she turned as Carson drew the curtains. She caught a short glimpse of John’s arms around her and Elizabeth’s face against his neck. Carson stepped over to her as the want to cry herself flooded her heart and his hand on her shoulder did nothing to ease that symptom. Why could things never be easy?

~~**~~

Daniel walked determinedly towards the door, his anger levels had been building through the whole trip and he could no longer wait to come face to face with Benjamin Kavanagh. It was now four months since the man had vanished, and it had taken one slip up on his behalf to lead them to his location. The Daedalus had left for Atlantis a week ago, Jack back on board to take over for Elizabeth who had once again been forced out of her work and every member of the SGC knew that fear had won over the strong woman – all because this sexist pig couldn’t let things go.

Teal’c even footsteps seemed far too calm to his own ears as the blood and adrenaline drove each foot fall on the concrete floor. He knew he was being irrational, they had the man now, getting him in prison would be an easy step now but still he couldn’t calm himself. He paused at the door and took a deep breath before reaching up and ringing the bell. Movement inside. His mind focused on the shuffle of feet and the shift of the curtain before the door opened and he found himself face to face with a pretty young woman.

“Can I help you?” she asked.

“Benjamin Kavanagh?” Daniel asked back unable to really ask a full question.

“Benny, someone here for you,” she called and moved back into another room. Daniel’s eyes were drawn to the stairs and the smile on Kavanagh’s face as he made his way down. He paused at the bottom and Daniel saw the moment he realised who was there to see him.

A heartbeat passed before both Daniel and Kavanagh reacted at the same time. Kavanagh turned at the bottom of the stairs and started off down the hallway, anticipating the move, Daniel started after him almost instantly and tackled him to the ground before the kitchen door. Shoving him hard over onto his back, Daniel drew his fist back and landed a sharp blow to the man’s jaw.

“You little man, you get your kicks off threatening a woman?” he screamed and heard the vague protest of the woman. “Enjoy sending people to kill someone?”

“What?” the woman shouted.

“I didn’t do anything to her,” Benjamin protested.

“No,” Daniel said sarcastically, “we have two men who said you talked them into killing her and reporting back on what she does so you could ruin her life back here as well.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

Daniel struck him again. Then again.

“Men like you should be burned at the stake.”

“Daniel Jackson,” Teal’c said from behind him, Daniel didn’t bother to turn and look, “we are merely here to arrest Doctor Kavanagh for the attempt on Doctor Weir’s life.”

“Attempt? What attempted?” the woman asked again, “Who’s Doctor Weir?”

“Fine,” Daniel spat and pushed Kavanagh back onto his front. “Doctor Benjamin Kavanagh, you are under arrest for the attempted murder of Doctor Elizabeth Weir and the threat on her life and her mothers.”

Daniel climbed to his feet and roughly pulled the man up, the anger he’d managed to curd earlier thrumming through his veins and doubling his emotions. He shoved the man around and got a surge of satisfaction as he heard a leg come sharply in contact with a table. He shoved him forwards again and managed to whack his head against the door frame before he was shoved out into the street.

Turning Daniel caught the raised brow on Teal’c’s face and shrugged. He didn’t care right now how he treated the scumbag, Elizabeth was a friend and nothing she had ever done in her life deserved the treatment she had received. He could kill him, that at least would end any possible nightmare Elizabeth would suffer and keep her forever safe from this bastard. She’d already suffered enough, first from the men who had tried to kill her under his request and then, while pregnant as she currently was, she had be forced to live in fear of him still loose and contemplating his next move.

 _‘Prison would be a much better punishment for him,’_ he kept telling himself. _‘Let him be someone’s bitch and see how he likes living in fear.’_ Maybe he could talk Landry into letting him tell Elizabeth over the comm. when they next contact Atlantis. It would be nice to see the relief on her face, to finally feel relaxed in the knowledge that she was face and finally felt that way. 

~~**~~

It didn’t matter how they sat or laid, she was uncomfortable. Just short of eight months pregnant, Jack O’Neill hadn’t left since she was four months along and had been admitted to the infirmary for a few weeks. He had however spent most of his time helping her by chasing reports and doing pre-mission briefings. Now though he was back in command for the third time and he had sent John to stay with her. When he’d called to ask a question, he had quickly picked up on her discomfort and moments later, John had appeared.

He was sitting behind her now, her back against his front and hands massaging her hips. She was having trouble pinpointing the pain, it seemed to fluctuate between her back and hips before shifting low in her abdomen. She took a deep breath now and again and let it out slow to ease the pain and creased her brow when the pain subsided to a dull ache. It wouldn’t last long, then the pain would return, starting in her back before moving around her hips and then again down to her lower abdomen before it intensified and then abated.

“Eleven minutes,” John said and she turned to look at him.

“You’ve been timing me?” she asked.

“If I didn’t know better, I would think you were in labour. But you’re not eight months along yet, it’s too early.”

“It doesn’t feel like labour.”

“You don’t know what it should feel like,” he pointed out. “Unless there’s something you’d like to tell me?”

Elizabeth huffed a laugh and instantly regretted it as a pang shot up her back. She groaned in pain and shifted her hips to sit more comfortably on the bed.

“That’s true, but I think it should be a lot more painful than...” she was cut off by the door chime and shifted to get up – with John’s help. She walked, or waddled was a better description, to the door and leaning against the frame, activated the release and the door slid open. “Mum!”

“Wow, look at you,” Penny said, her face alight and Elizabeth suddenly felt self conscious about her appearance and size. It only lasted a second as the pain in her back returned and she leaned forward against the door frame. “Elizabeth?”

She couldn’t answer, the pain was stronger on her feet and as it shifted around to her hips she started to wonder if she’d be able to stand up through it. Her mother’s hands settled on her shoulder, one drifting down her arm slightly as John stepped up behind her returned to his massage of her hips.

“Nine minutes,” he said.

“Is she due?” Penny asked and Elizabeth knew when John didn’t answer that he’d shook his head. The pain shifted again, moving lower in her abdomen than before and she let out a breath through her teeth, hearing it hiss before she spoke.

“What are you doing here?”

“General O’Neill arranged for me to stay here for a while,” she said. Elizabeth straightened, her back pain striking and she felt flood of water down her legs almost instantly. Her breath caught and she let out a panicked noise.

“Elizabeth?” John asked. She could hear the worry in his voice and knew he’d felt it on his bare feet. “Your water just broke.”

“No,” Elizabeth breathed, she couldn’t catch her breath. This couldn’t be happening she still had six weeks before her due date. “No, no, no. Six weeks,” she breathed.

“Carson,” John said into his radio. “Elizabeth’s in labour.”

She didn’t hear what Carson said, her radio long ago abandoned to her bedside. And she wasn’t able to pay attention to John as a new pain fluttered across her stomach before growing in strength. Her mother’s hands around her waist were welcomed when her hands pushed against the small of her back and Elizabeth could rest her head on her shoulder.

“Five minutes,” John said more panicked than she felt, “that was only five minutes.”

Silence fell and Elizabeth took as many calming breaths as she could manage before John’s hands returned to her hips.

“We need to start walking,” he said and her mother’s arms moved. She was eased out on unsteady feet and John guided her down the corridor. For the first time in the two months they have lived together, Elizabeth was thankful that John had picked a room close to the infirmary.

They navigated several corridors before Elizabeth had to stop and the pain rippled through her dropping her to her knees with the pain. There was no way this was normal. Early and extremely painful, she wanted to just lay down and sleep. She could feel the sweat dripping down her back and forehead.

“Mum,” she breathed, her hand wrapping tightly around the older woman’s hand.

“I’m here, Elizabeth, take a few deep and slow breaths.”

“So tired,” she breathed as the sound of an approaching gurney echoed around the corner. John was up and moved ahead of her and she reached for him for a moment before another hand took her arm.

“Take a deep breath and straighten your back, Elizabeth,” Teyla said. It took a few breaths before she could actually find the effort to straighten her back. The pain abated quickly and then returned as another contraction passed over her. She gritted her teeth, leaned forward and let go of the supporting hands to brace herself on the floor as she screamed through the pain.

~~**~~

The infirmary seemed too bright and crowded. Carson’s voice sounded strange to her ears, the rushing of blood gargling the sound and tone of his voice. John was on one side of her and her mother on the other. Elizabeth pried her eyes open in the brightness to watch her mother as the older woman looked around, it must be unnerving, a new galaxy, another planet, an ancient city and before she could even settle into the environment she was pushed into the infirmary with her daughter. 

“Pain killers?” John asked and Elizabeth turned to look at him.

“I can’t,” Carson said, “the only thing I can give her would take too long to work.” She felt one of Carson’s gloved hands on her ankle for a second before the doctor turned quickly. “She’s fully dilated. Elizabeth,” he said to her and it took a moment before she could actually turn to look at him. “Don’t fight it, let it happen.”

“It’s too early,” she breathed as the contraction hit. This one was different, stronger and she could feel the muscles in her stomach contract tightly down against her baby. “Why so early?” she asked through gritted teeth as she thought off the urge to push.

“You went through quiet a lot of stress, love,” he offered, “you haven’t completely relaxed into the idea that he can’t hurt you, it’s probably put a lot of pressure on the baby.”

“I’m gonna kill Kavanagh,” John hissed.

“I think there’s a queue for that and it starts behind Elizabeth,” Carson said, his hand pushing against her stomach lightly. She knew he felt the start of the contraction, and confirmed it when his hand moved. “Don’t fight it, Elizabeth, push!”

She couldn’t argue even if she wanted to. She just reminded herself she trusted Carson explicitly, gripped John and her mother’s supporting hands and pushed.


	8. Chapter 8

“How long does it take?” Ronon asked pinning Rodney to the wall to stop him from pacing the floor.

“Anything from five minutes to five days,” Jack offered, watching with amusement as Rodney tried to free himself from Ronon’s effortless hold.

“She was almost ready to birth when she went in,” Teyla offered and began drumming her fingers on her knee. It didn’t matter how long it took, the baby was a couple of weeks too early it could have been born half an hour ago and Carson could still be struggling to stabilise the baby before letting anyone else in. Either that or he had already lost it, but if that had been the case, he would have been out, looking grim and told them to leave the couple alone. Jack didn’t want to consider the last possibility but it was there in his head.

As if on cue, the door opened and they moved as one towards it. John appeared, took one look at them, the fear and pain on his face evident, before he turned and left the infirmary. Jack watched him before turning and stopping in the doorway.

Elizabeth was sat up in bed, her legs over the side and the evidence of the birth ignored on the bed beside her. In front of her, the incubator had been set up and the tiny bundle of a new born baby lay still inside. Elizabeth’s hand poked through the hole in the side and Jack watched for a moment as her finger stroked the tiny cheek. Tears ran down her own cheeks and her mother sat at her side stroking her back in comfort.

“General,” Carson said stopping close by.

“What happened with Sheppard?” Jack asked.

“I don’t think he could handle this,” Carson said indicating the baby’s current living conditions. “She has a long few weeks of fighting to do,” he said.

“She?” Jack asked. Carson just smiled, patted his shoulder and left the room. “Someone should go find Sheppard,” he said and heard someone turn from the doorway.

He took a deep breath before moving forward, his eyes taking in that Elizabeth had moved her hand back to rest on the edge of incubator bed, still inside the capsule and her head rested on her mother shoulder.

“Hey,” he said with a smile as Teyla moved to stand on the other side of the incubator. “She’s already got Sheppard hair,” he said noting the thin strands standing up on her tiny head. Elizabeth smiled through her silent tears and Jack fidgeted a little before moving to take a better look at the newborn.

Her eyes were still closed, probably slightly underdeveloped and her little round face was red from the effort of being born. The wisps of hair on her head were a dark brown, almost a mix between Elizabeth’s and John’s colour. Her chest was rising quickly, aided by the apparatus connected to her to keep her alive. Yet he couldn’t fight off the urge to smile, she was still a beautiful baby and with John and Elizabeth for parents she’d been strong and too stubborn to die.

“Sir,” Jack turned to find a nurse behind him, fresh scrubs and sheets in her hands and a slightly worried look on her face. “I’m gonna have to ask you to leave for a while.”

Jack looked back at Teyla still studying the baby before he turned and headed for the door. It was then that he saw Rodney, still standing in the doorway looking in on the child from a distance. Behind him, Radek, Lorne a few others had gathered and Ronon was nowhere to be found. He stepped out and closed the door leaving the three women alone in the room to help Elizabeth and heaved a deep sigh wishing for the first time he knew how to pray properly.

~~**~~

John just walked, he was aware of someone following him, but he ignored them, his feet carrying him around the city aimlessly. He’d watched the birth of his daughter, the best thing he’d seen in his life and he had no doubt he’d remember it forever. Which was part of the problem. The pain Elizabeth had gone through, no medication to help ease the suffering because she’d been in labour for too long before they’d realised what was happening. The fear on her face, the panic in her voice as she spoke to him, he couldn’t imagine the pain she was going through now, a mother with a daughter six weeks too early.

But his own pain was overshadowing his care for her, his love for them both. She wasn’t breathing, his baby girl wasn’t breathing and he would have to wait at least a week before he could pick her up and cradle her against his chest. Underdeveloped lungs. Carson had warned them of that during the birth, told them the last thing to develop was a child’s lung, getting the infant ready to enter the world, out of the water environment and safety of the mother’s womb and into harsh air of the world. But the sight of the tiny, too small baby in Carson’s hands lying still and unresponsive had hit hard. No simple smack on the back or clearing of the airways would help; she simply couldn’t live outside of Elizabeth’s body.

She was going to die.

He’d managed to stay long enough to watch Carson set her in the incubator, attach monitoring devices and life support equipment, before he’d realised he had managed to hurt Elizabeth more than help her. He was putting her through too much pain. The birth, the death of their child and soon, the loss of her mother. Jack had told him Penny was suffering, her diagnosis had gotten worse and her time was now limited to months. Afraid she’d never get that one look at her grandchild, John had asked for her to be brought to Atlantis, see where her daughter live, hold her grandchild before it was too late. End her life where her only child lived.

He turned out a door and the cool, windy air along the pier hit him hard in the face, the bitterness of the early evening sea salted air was like tiny daggers against his cheeks and it felt good, at least for a moment. He didn’t stop though, carrying on to the end of the walkway, and stopping on the edge to look down at the choppy water against the city’s sides. Vaguely, he heard the following footsteps stop only a pace or two back, maybe they were making sure he wouldn’t jump. He couldn’t do that, leave Elizabeth with more pain like that, after all that had happened, all the suffering she’d dealt with, it would kill her. He wasn’t completely sure losing the baby or her mother wouldn’t, but he couldn’t add to that suffering. But again the pain in his chest increased as his mind once again showed him the image of his baby girl in Carson hands motionless – lifeless – still.

He reached up and touched a hand to his cheek, the wetness there was a surprise, the water from the sea too low to spray and the wind had backed off as if afraid to add to his own agony. He was crying, unsure what to do next, afraid to lose his only chance at a family. After all, would Elizabeth want to try again with all the hurt she’d felt this time? It just wasn’t fair anymore. Someone was punishing them, him, and it was punishing her along with it. He loved her, he wanted nothing more than to spend every minute of every day with her, hold her, kiss her, make love to her. He’d done that enough over the last nine months to realise just how much he had fallen for her. Laying in bed with her back against his chest, hand over her hip resting on the stretch of her belly supporting his baby had been like a dream. That dream was over now and instead of the relief and joy he should be feeling, instead of the smile that should be on his face as he touched his first child, he felt nothing but pain and sadness, accompanied with tears and a frown.

“What are you gonna name her?” Ronon asked. John spared a look over his shoulder at his friend and turned back to the splash of the water.

He couldn’t answer the question, he didn’t know why, but all he could do was swallow. They hadn’t agreed on a name, down to three for each sex they had never managed to setting on one they both liked. They should have had time. Then there was the lingering sensation that naming her would be pointless if she wasn’t going to survive. It would make it more personal, more real to put a name to the delicate and tiny face of his daughter, only to watch the life drain out of her red cheeks.

“Teyla started a betting pool that you’d call her Penny,” Ronon tried again and despite everything he smiled briefly through a huff of air. Penny was on the list, but John had wanted it as a middle name, not a first. “Carson probably didn’t help, telling her at lunch that she’d mentioned named like Amelia and Olivia.”

“Don’t,” John breathed out. Amelia was on the list, but Olivia had been taken off only a few days ago.

“What are you running from?” Ronon asked instead.

“I’m not running,” he replied and considered that he actually had run.

“You’re on the end of a pier as far away from the infirmary as it’s possible to get,” Ronon said and then silence fell for a moment. “I thought medical attention on Earth was good enough to save lives. If something like this had happened on Sateda, the doctors would have given up the second the baby was out. Carson didn’t. I don’t know what he’s done, but she’s still alive, heart beating and everything.”

“She’s in an incubator, it’s not a guarantee.”

“It’s a chance.”

“And what if it fails?” John shouted turning around, the tears falling harder down his face, but he couldn’t bring himself to care.

“Then she’ll need you,” Ronon said calmly taking a step forward. “It’ll hurt more if you leave her to suffer alone.”

“How would you know?” he spat.

“I watched my friend walk away from his wife when their baby died,” Ronon said, his voice rising, “two days later she killed herself, the letter she left was full of apologies for hurting him. She blamed herself, she though he blamed her too. How do you think Elizabeth’s going to feel? She already thinks this is her fault and it’s entirely possible that it is.”

That stung. But Ronon was right, Elizabeth felt guilty, she’d felt guilty the whole time she was giving birth, repeating the word ‘no’ and saying she was sorry to anyone who would listen. He’d whispered to her then that he didn’t blame her, he didn’t. He’d whispered that if someone had caused this it was Kavanagh, he had. He’d told her he loved her that he always would, he would. But faced with a dead child, would she remember that? Would he?

“I just need time.”

“Don’t take too long, or it might be too late to repair the damage.”

~~**~~

Jack sat and watched Elizabeth for the week that followed. She was a strong woman despite what had and was happening. Her mother came and went, mostly, as Jack knew, to get treatment and then because he and Teyla insisted she at least see the entire city and have some time alone.

After the first day, having given birth and getting cleaned up, Elizabeth slept whenever someone else was in the room to keep an eye on her child. When she was awake she watched over her daughter waiting for a sign that she was improving, but she didn’t cry again and Jack spend most of the week trying to work out if she was being strong for herself, her mother, John or the baby girl in front of her.

John was no were to be seen, and Ronon unwilling to give up his location. So Jack contented himself with the fact that these people knew each other better than he knew himself. Trusting Ronon to talk John back into the room and Teyla to talk Elizabeth into eating properly at each meal, he kept his distance and took time in her room to let her sleep.

John appeared on the fourth day, his eyes red from crying and lack of sleep and his expression apologetic and sorrowful. When he stepped into the room with shaking hands, Elizabeth turned to look at him and for the first time in almost a week she moved away from her child’s side. Jack only stayed for a moment, watching as Elizabeth hugged him, pulling him close to comfort him and John’s arms wrapped around her waist. He heard the low and whispered sorry before he stepped out of the room and took a seat opposite the door.

News flooded from the infirmary like a fire in an over oxygenated room the morning Baby Sheppard, as she’d been deemed, opened her eyes for the first time and started to move her arms and legs. A surge of hope and relief rushing around the city, lifting hopes and spirits to a bubbled conversation that lingered in every corner. But Carson was unwilling to remove her from the incubator just yet, wanting to wait at least 48 hours.

Jack expected that 48 hours to stand and visited them the next day with a grin on his face wanting to see the beaming smile on their faces that their daughter had survived. He didn’t expect the eyeful when he stepped into the room though.

“Woah, that’s a little more of you than I wanted to ever see,” Jack said. Elizabeth chuckled lightly and returned her attention to the small baby nursing at her breast. “Thought she’d been in for another 20 hours?”

“Carson put her through a scanner when she started to cry. Lungs are perfect, well as good as they can be for someone born too early,” John said, “so he suggested that she’s probably crying because she’s hungry.”

John was sat tucked close against Elizabeth, his hand holding Elizabeth’s arm to help support the baby. Rosy cheeks, bright eyes staring up at Elizabeth and her dark brown messy hair gave her the perfect mix between both her parents.

“So you have name yet? Can’t keep calling her Baby Sheppard.”

“Amelia Penelope Sheppard,” Elizabeth said, her finger brushing the child’s cheek.

“Amelia?”

“Novak on the Daedalus gave me a book of names a few days after she was born. I looked it up, means ‘striving’.”

“That’s pretty appropriate. Fitting, even.”

A few days later the couple returned to their own room, baby in tow and things returned to normal for just a few brief weeks.

Until Penny Weir collapsed in the mess hall at breakfast.

Elizabeth returned to the infirmary, spending most of the day at her mother side with Amelia in her arms and John or Teyla at her side. For two days the city returned to its quiet and dormant state, Jack returned to his seat outside the medical room as often as could. He was sitting right then when she died, silence in the room only punctuated by the high piercing beep of the heart monitor until the nurse switched it off. Then the baby cried and the door opened. It was Teyla who stepped out, Amelia in her arms and a look of pure sorrow on her face, behind the short woman Jack saw Elizabeth clinging to John, her face buried in his t-shirt and her body shaking from tears. He reached out and placed a hand on Teyla’s shoulder before shutting the door behind her.

Her funeral was held by the Athosian’s on the main land in their traditional manner and Jack spent the whole timing crossing between paying attention to Amelia in his arms and wondering which aspect of the ceremony would have fascinated Daniel most. Elizabeth was too calm for the two days after and Jack, having already scheduled John to be off world, spent his time sitting with her as much as he could.

“You’re dealing with this a lot better than I thought you would,” Jack said on the afternoon before John returned.

“You mean the loose of my mother or the fact that my daughter is small and weighs too little for her age?” she asked continuing to change Amelia’s diaper.

“Both,” Jack said with a quirked brow and smug look.

“My life is great right now,” she said picking the baby up and joining him on the sofa. “I have a beautiful daughter, a boyfriend who loves us and I know that my mother died happy.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because she told me,” Elizabeth replied and he could see the memory tweaking her emotions. “She said I’ve always made her proud and she would have understood why I never had children. She said that she couldn’t hope for anything more than the family she had and that there was nothing like seeing your child smile for the first and last time.”

“I hope you smiled,” Jack said a little more serious than he meant it to sound.

“Yes I did,” she said concentrating on rocking Amelia back to sleep, “even though I couldn’t stop crying.”

“Understandable,” he said and leaned closer to Elizabeth’s shoulder and looked down at Amelia with a big silly grin on his face. Amelia became quickly excited fidgeting in her tightly wrapped blanket and huffing in place of the smile she had yet to learn to create.

“You and John are too much alike, you both like exciting her when I’m trying to get her to sleep,” Elizabeth complained and got up to walk around. “Sometimes I think you’re related.”

Jack’s grin fell and he turned a serious face to her. “I resent that,” he said and turned away from her, crossed his arms and start to pout.

“You’re both just big kids, you just the older and bigger kid. You both act stupid when it suits your needs, but you’re pretty smart when the situation gets sticky. Except in John’s case and he pleads ignorance on how to change a diaper.”

“New born diapers are horrible,” Jack said, “I wouldn’t want to change them again.”

“At least you did,” Elizabeth offered.

“Yeah,” Jack said getting up. “When I had no choice.” He gave her a smile. “I better go check on the control staff; I found leaving them alone for too long makes Chuck antsy.”

Elizabeth’s laughter followed him out the door and he couldn’t help but smile.


	9. Chapter 9

**Two years later**  
“Amelia,” Teyla called across the Athosian village. She could hear the high pitched squeal of the two year old girl playing, probably being tickled by Jinto. She loved it when John and Elizabeth gave her time with their daughter, she never asked too often, letting them raise the girl as they wanted, but to let her have the days of freedom like today was something Teyla liked seeing on the child’s face. “Amelia,” she said stepping around the corner to see Jinto slow running after the little girl. Amelia couldn’t run yet, she was too young and her legs only managed small steps, but that didn’t stop her from trying and if she over balanced and fell she quickly got back up and continued.

Jinto turned his attention on a few other small children running around the open area, and a few older ones too, it gave Amelia the chance to get some distance between her and Jinto and in the process Teyla stepped into the girl’s path. Jinto turned back to her, roaring like a beast and clunked towards her. She screamed from the excitement and ran straight into Teyla’s leg with full force, her little arms running around her calves to stop Jinto picking her up to pretend to eat her.

“It is time to go home, Amelia,” Teyla said looking down at the child as Jinto straightened up.

“No,” Amelia shouted. Thankfully her vocabulary was limited to one word conversations and only a few words. Teyla would never forget the look of anger on Elizabeth’s face and the fear on Rodney’s when Amelia called someone an idiot. Sure she hadn’t said the word properly, but the meaning was there.

“Your mother is waiting for you,” Teyla said and Amelia shook her head but didn’t release Teyla’s legs. “Then I suppose you do not want me to sneak you chocolate cake tomorrow with lunch. Or talk your father into reading you a bedtime story every night this week?” Amelia didn’t respond for a moment and she knew the bribe was taking effect. “Naughty girls don’t get treats or bed time stories.”

“J’to,” Amelia said, rubbing at her eyes and indicating that she wanted to stay and play with Jinto for a while longer.

“I will come and visit you,” Jinto promised, he was due to be in Atlantis in a few days time to study with one of the scientists. All of the Athosian teenagers had been given the option to learn a few subjects that would benefit both Atlantis and the Athosians such as Biology, Medication and Botany. Jinto however had asked very politely to learn about the planets, not just space and the planets in it, but the structure of the planet they were on and its rotation around the sun. Elizabeth had added that to the options on the condition that they pick one of the other topics to learn. “We can play again in a few days if you’re parents allow it.”

Teyla reached down and picked Amelia up, the girl struggled for a moment before turning to face Teyla.

“Juice,” she said before slipping her thumb into her mouth.

“Carson has it in the Jumper,” Teyla said pulled her hand away from her mouth, Elizabeth had told her a few times they wanted to stop her sucking her thumb as much as possible. Amelia squirmed again and finally bent heading for the ground until Teyla relented and placed her on the ground. She was off quickly, heading across the village towards the Jumper and her drink. “Thank you, Jinto,” she said with a smile.

“You are welcome,” Jinto gave a small bow and turned back to the other kids with a roar.

~~**~~

Elizabeth was on the bed, flat on her stomach with her hands tucked under the pillow above her head. Her feet off the edge of the bed made John smile as he studied her. His wife. They had married only a few weeks ago on the mainland, they never got to have their honeymoon, which John was trying to arrange back on Earth in Elizabeth’s mothers home. Elizabeth had refused to sell the place, having it packed up and the furniture covered _‘in case we want to have a few weeks away and show Amelia where she’s from,’_ she had reasoned. John agreed.

He ran his hand up her back under the t-shirt she’d thrown on. They’d had the day alone together with no interruption. They had started with breakfast with Amelia before Teyla had stolen their beautiful little girl for a day on the mainland. The morning out on one of the piers was spent on a blanket just sitting watching the ocean and ignoring the going-ons in the city behind them. After lunch they’d taken a walk around the city, avoiding populated areas and working off the snacks they’d consumed in the morning. Dinner had been quiet and hidden away at the back of the mess and no one dared to ask to join them when they sat so close, which John just found amusing. Then back here they’d come and he hadn’t wasted a single second in stripping her down and practically devouring her. When Elizabeth had told him to slow down he’d refused, stating that he was a man with a beautiful wife and she should be thankful he didn’t do this during the morning.

That had been two hours ago though and John knew Teyla would be bringing Amelia back soon.

Pushing the thought away, John leaned in and placed a kiss on the small of Elizabeth’s back. She let out soft moan and shifted her hips to push him away before dropping back into place. John leaned in again, his hands slipping up her sides as he kissed his path up her spine. She groaned again and shuddered under his touch before turning over slightly to look at him.

“We don’t have time to do this again,” she said, “Teyla will be dropping Amelia back any minute.”

“I can be quick.”

“I know,” she said earning an evil glare and his finger flicking at her side to tickle her. “I need to shower.”

“After,” John said turning his kisses over her side and across her stomach, his hands busily pushing her top up to expose her breasts. He took a nipple into his mouth before she could protest and felt the instant response of her back arching towards him. It confused him for a moment when she actually pushed him away.

“Too sensitive,” she pleaded and he grinned, he’d had his fun with her chest earlier and maybe, just maybe, he’d teased a little too much. She gave him a knowing smirk. “Let me shower before Teyla gets here.”

“Only if I can shower with you.” He started back down her stomach. Abandoning her shirt and starting to ease her sweat pants down until he had to shift lower on the bed to drop them off the end.

As he moved them off her ankles, Elizabeth swung her legs off the side of the bed and stood up. Quickly John slipped off the end of the bed to his knees in her path, he wasn’t letting her go without one more intimate moment before their daughter was back to run in on them in the middle of his teasing. Stopping in front of him, Elizabeth gave him a warning look before bending down to kiss him.

“I’m showering,” she said, kissed him again and pulled her top off. She dropped it over his face before stepping passed him.

John pulled in a deep breath, taking her scent into his lungs before pulling the t-shirt off and picking up her pants. He dropped them on the chair before realising she hadn’t locked the door to the bathroom. As fast as he could, he pulled his own pants off and padded barefoot into the bathroom.

She had her back to the shower door and he walked determined to the door and pulled it open. She paused, soap on her arm and glanced back at him with a smirk. She’d baited him, knew he would follow, probably felt his erection when he’d been trying to rouse her on the bed. He let the door shut behind him and slipped his arms around her waist before placing a short kiss on her shoulder.

“You can carry on if you want,” he grinned knowing she would never let him just have his way with her body without getting something from it.

“Cheeky,” she said turning to face him. “Down,” she ordered and his grin widened. 

He had expected punishment of the suggestion, but with her there was no such thing as punishment, just good orders. He eased down slowly to his knees and kissed her belly before raising one of her legs to hook over his shoulder. He leaned in close, placed a kiss just above her sex before placing another on her thigh. She growled in frustration at the tease and just before she could say another word he slipped his tongue through her sex.

Elizabeth gasped and her fingers slid though his hair to grip tightly. His head throbbed for a moment before he flicked at her clit and her fingers flexed. Knowing time was short, he reached down with his free hand, leaving the other on her thigh, and started to stroke himself. He hadn’t needed to do this in years, he loved Elizabeth, more than he’d love another woman, when she wasn’t in the mood; he’d waited. Towards the end of the pregnancy that wait had frustrated him, but he had kept his self promise that she was all he needed.

“John,” she breathed and pulled back to look up at her, she watching his hand. “We don’t have time,” she breathed. He got up quick, moving his hands back to her waist, he leaned in and kissed her slowly before placing a kiss on her cheek beside her ear.

“Turn around,” he breathed and waited, hands following the curve of her body, as she obeyed. He stopped her hands as she reached them forward to brace on the wall in front of her. Wrapping her arms and his around her body just below her breasts he pressed the length of his body against hers. “God you’re so beautiful I swear you’re gonna drive me crazy.”

Elizabeth chuckled as he kissed at her neck and rocked his hips against her backside. She breathed a warning _‘John,’_ frustrating him that this time he didn’t have the luxury of exploring her like he tried to do every time. He knew her well, head to toe in fact, but that didn’t stop him.

He shifted. Letting her lean forward slightly and releasing one of her arms he positioned his cock at her entrance and slowly pushed into her. Her pleasured noises made him twitch before he was fully inside her and he groaned as she pulsed around him. Fighting the urge to just get this over with, which he didn’t like doing lately, he wrapped his arm back around her pulling her back against him and began to move. She jerked on the first thrust and John paused, they’d never done this before, sure he’d laid on her back and made love to her, but never standing up. 

“You okay?” he asked between swallows.

“So good,” she breathed and rocked her hips back against him. He thrust cautiously and she twitched in his arms and let out a strangled sound of pleasure he’d never heard before. John grinned at the thought of finding the most sensitive part of her body with something other than his finger and thrust a few more times. She groaned loudly and he knew instantly that he’d never get to do this with Amelia in the area, or anyone else for that matter.

Elizabeth’s finger nails dug into his hands as he continued to thrust, he kissed at her shoulder and neck, listening avidly to the noises she made and the twitch of her hips when he moved just right. She was flexing on him and he could feel his balls tighten dangerously as a low rumbling groan started in her throat. It wouldn’t take much now, a few hard thrust, a flick over a nipple or her clit and she’d be flying higher than the tallest tower of the city.

He released one of her hands, drifting his palm down over her stomach and paused when she gripped him tight, his hand resting over the flutter of her lower stomach as her breath caught and her muscles clenched at him. He was definitely finding time to do this with her again, he thought fleetingly as she came around him and he thrust a few more times before coming inside her.

John felt Elizabeth’s knees give way and tightened his grip on her body. He kept her up until she could balance herself again and return to her body from her near orbit experience. He pulled out as she took a deep breath and began to turn in his arms. She wrapped herself around him, resting her head on his chest for a moment to catch her breath. He picked up the soap and started to wash her back and felt her chuckle against him at the simple act.

“Move your hair,” he said softly, her brown curls were now halfway down her back and he loved it that way, but it made washing her back difficult. She pulled back just slightly, reached an arm behind her neck and dragged her hair to the side before resting against him again.

He washed her from head to toe and left her to do her own hair while he started on his own cleansing. Before she stepped out of the shower she did his back and then left him to his own shower. He found her lying on her back on the bed, wet hair soaking through her pillow and her eyes closed. He quirked a brow at her thinking she’d been tired a little too much lately.

“We’re doing that again,” he said leaning over the bed to kiss her lips.

“Sure,” she said, “in about a month when Teyla takes Amelia again.”

The chime rang and John pushed off the bed, pulled on his pants and t-shirt and made his way to the door.

“If I’d knowing having a family with you meant I had to schedule quality time with you, I might have reconsidered,” he said just as he opened the door. Teyla was carrying a sleeping Amelia and John grinned at the sighted before taking his daughter from her. He had managed to settle his baby’s head against his shoulder when Elizabeth responded.

“It’s gonna get twice as difficult in about seven months,” she said. John shifted too quickly and was thankful for Teyla’s reflexes as Amelia’s head lulled off to one side and she caught it.

“What?” he said. “Elizabeth,” he said and paused as Amelia stirred. “Could have told me you were pregnant when I wasn’t holding Amelia,” he said indignantly and heard Teyla stifle a laugh.

“The joys of being a father,” Teyla offered. She dropped Amelia’s bag just inside the door, ran a hand over Amelia’s sleeping head and giving him a small wave, walked away.

John carried his daughter to her bedroom, changed her and settled her into bed before heading back to his own room. Elizabeth had changed into her pajamas and was once again laying on her front. With a smile he moved over to the bed, settled down and placed a kiss on the small of her back before resting back on the pillow.

“Remind me to thank Kavanagh one day,” he said with a grin.

“Do that and I’m ordering Ronon to shoot you,” she replied raising a finger at him. John chuckled and shifted closer to her before closing his eyes.


End file.
